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From: mouse@LARRY.MCRCIM.MCGILL.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re:  ICCCM question on InputFocus
Message-ID: <9012190749.AA03861@Larry.McRCIM.McGill.EDU>
Date: 19 Dec 90 07:49:52 GMT
Sender: daemon@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background)
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 47

> I have an application with multiple documents, and I need some way of
> determining which document is "current".  Users make documents
> current by clicking on them on the Mac.  The X equivalent seems to be
> FocusIn events,

Depending on precisely what you want, the equivalent is either
ButtonPress or FocusIn.  If you want to choose among multiple top-level
windows, I would recommend FocusIn.

> but under my current configuration of twm, I get these events
> whenever the cursor passes over a window.  I know I can configure twm
> to set focus only when the user clicks, but other users may have
> their window managers set to give focus to windows when the cursor
> passes into them.

Yes.  I'm glad to see you're considering other configurations than the
one you use.  (No smiley; I'm serious.  I've seen too many programs
that break in one way or another when run under unconventional setups;
the commonest problem is programs that ignore typein when the mouse
isn't in their window, even if they've been given focus by the wm.  If
these had been tested by anyone but the developer(s)...grumble.)

> I can't find anywhere in the ICCCM spec that dictates when a window
> manager should give focus to a window.

This is as it should be.  Different window managers have different
policies, and it is not the ICCCM's place to dictate which ones are or
aren't acceptable (if it tried, it would be ignored instead of
accepted...).

> If I can't differentiate between the user clicking on the title bar
> of the window and the cursor passing through the window, I can't see
> how to use focus events to indicate "current".

I don't see why not - if the focus is due to a transient passage over
the window, you will get a FocusOut shortly, indicating that the window
in question is no longer "current".  If you get a FocusIn on some other
one of your windows, then that one becomes current; if not, then it
doesn't matter because you aren't going to get keystrokes anyway.

Or so it seems to me...but I don't know all the details of your app.
Is this not workable for some reason?

					der Mouse

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