GNU bug report logs - #745
pop-to-buffer, frames, and input focus

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Message #135 received at 745 <at> emacsbugs.donarmstrong.com (full text, mbox):

From: martin rudalics <rudalics <at> gmx.at>
To: Helmut Eller <eller.helmut <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 745 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#745: pop-to-buffer, frames, and input focus
Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:42:00 +0200

>> (1) do a `display-buffer' making a new frame without that frame getting
>> raised and/or input focus, and
>
> If I call gtk_window_set_focus_on_map (GTK_WINDOW (wtop), FALSE) in
> gtkutil.c:xg_create_frame_widgets, then Metacity dosn't give the focus
> to new frames.  The initial Emacs frame is also not focused.
> gtk_window_set_focus_on_map sets _NET_WM_USER_TIME to 0.  I know that
> because I read the GTK source.  It can be verified by calling xprop on
> the resulting Emacs frame.

In this case we'd have to make `pop-to-buffer' give focus to the frame,
look out for applications that ("wrongly") expect `display-buffer' to
focus the frame, focus the initial frame, and decide what to do about
`select-window/frame'.  After the release we could implement this for
all ewmh-compliant window-managers.

>> (2) give input focus to/raise a frame that hasn't input focus/is not
>> raised.
>>
>> entirely using _NET_WM_USER_TIME?
>
> I don't know how to that with _NET_WM_USER_TIME.

For _NET_WM_USER_TIME I read

   This property allows a Window Manager to alter the focus, stacking,
   and/or placement behavior of windows when they are mapped depending
   on whether the new window was created by a user action or is a
   "pop-up" window activated by a timer or some other event.

but I fail to understand what "new window" means here.

> But the EWMH-spec says this:
>
>    _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW, WINDOW/32
>
>    The window ID of the currently active window or None if no window has
>    the focus. This is a read-only property set by the Window Manager. If
>    a Client wants to activate another window, it MUST send a
>    _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW client message to the root window:
>
>    _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW
>      window  = window to activate
>      message_type = _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW
>      format = 32
>      data.l[0] = source indication
>      data.l[1] = timestamp
>      data.l[2] = requestor's currently active window, 0 if none
>      other data.l[] elements = 0
>
>    Source indication should be 1 when the request comes from an
>    application, and 2 when it comes from a pager. Clients using older
>    version of this spec use 0 as source indication, see the section called
>    "Source indication in request" for details. The timestamp is Client's
>    last user activity timestamp (see _NET_WM_USER_TIME) at the time of the
>    request, and the currently active window is the Client's active toplevel
>    window, if any (the Window Manager may be e.g. more likely to obey the
>    request if it will mean transferring focus from one active window to
>    another).
>
>    Depending on the information provided with the message, the Window
>    Manager may decide to refuse the request (either completely ignore it,
>    or e.g. use _NET_WM_STATE_DEMANDS_ATTENTION).
>
> The current implementation of x_ewmh_activate_frame seems to work fine.

OK.

>> I faintly recall a discussion about a
>> misinterpretation of timestamps sent to the window-manager (Metacity?)
>> by Emacs.
>
> I've seen Metacity spit out warnings along the lines that XSetInputFocus
> was called with a wrong timestamp.  But I can't reproduce that right now.

Ahh, I recall that discussion.  Yet another reason why XSetInputFocus
should be avoided for ewmh-compliant window managers.  We should avoid
calling XSetInputFocus for these in the present release.

So I think we can distinguish three types of window managers according
to our needs and what _NET_SUPPORTS tells us:

- _NET_WM_USER_TIME capable ones, where we can have `display-buffer' not
  set the input focus for new frames (and thus not implicitly select the
  new window thus contradicting the doc-string of `display-buffer').  I
  suppose Metacity falls into this group.

- _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW capable ones, where `display-buffer' will behave as
  now but x_ewmh_activate_frame works.  Sawfish seems to belong here.

- Non-ewmh-compliant ones where we have to use XSetInputFocus.

martin

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