WM focus, was Re: changed file while editing
On Sat 11 Dec 2021 at 18:24:46 (-0500), The Wanderer wrote:
> On 2021-12-11 at 18:20, Greg Wooledge wrote:
> > On Sat, Dec 11, 2021 at 05:18:32PM -0500, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> >> On Saturday 11 December 2021 02:39:06 pm David Wright wrote:
> >>
> >>> Another facility that I don't use is "click-to-focus", because I
> >>> prefer to focus a window just by shoving the mouse inside it (no
> >>> precision required).
> >>
> >> I prefer this as well. Where is this set?
> >
> > It's a feature of your window manager. Some WMs offer it, and some
> > do not. Some offer multiple modes, and you can configure things to
> > use the mode you prefer.
> >
> > It's specific to your WM. How you configure it (if there is any
> > choice) is specific to your WM. Could be a thing you click, could be
> > a line you put into a text config file, could be *anything*.
>
> FWIW in case it helps in looking: in my limited experience with
> configuring and reading about this feature, it's tended to be formally
> called "focus follows mouse" or "focus follows pointer".
Looked at in detail, it can get quite complicated. For example,
a window might never accept focus, accept focus, take focus from
it's parent (like a dialog box), or, rather rudely, just grab
focus regardless (like some popups).
If they accept focus, they might require a click, or they may not.
If they do, they might pass that click to the application for
acting upon, or they might just throw it away (because it was just
a FocusClick to take focus). The FocusClick might also raise the
window to top (or a close to top as it was allowed to be), or it
might not. (And that leaves aside windows that raise themselves
just by having the mouse pass over them.)
When the mouse leaves a window and enters another that /could/
accept focus, the previous window could retain focus until you
actively take it away (what fvwm calls SloppyFocus).
And that leaves out keystrokes that circulate focus round a
population of windows (those that accept it), also whether a
deliberately created new window should have focus.
How much of this is exposed to the user will vary according to
the WM being used, and what's put in the configuration file.
It sounds as if some people's are quite limited.
A WM like fvwm is extremely configurable with its textual
fvwmrc file; so much so that there have long been examples
floating round on the internet for people to base theirs on.
Writing one from scratch would be quite challenging, but
there's no need as the system one has hooks for tweaking it.
BTW there are some standards in this area, but I think they
make dry reading. One that fvwm mentions is the ICCCM, and
another is EWMH.
Cheers,
David.
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