Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!uflorida!gatech!bloom-beacon!mit-vax!josh
From: josh@mit-vax.LCS.MIT.EDU (Joshua Marantz)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Keyboard focus management and the "Cycle" key (follow-up)
Message-ID: <4873@mit-vax.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: 11 Oct 88 00:46:28 GMT
Organization: MIT LCS, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 24


After having used my twm cycle key for a while, I realize it has a
couple of problems.  When running in a focussed environment, it is
helpful if the window manager sets the focus to new windows as they
are created, and resets the focus to the most recently used window
when the window with the focus is destroyed.

Another difference between UIS and the modified twm is that if you use
the mouse to pop a UIS window, the window that previously held the
focus will be first on the cycle-stack.  To do this with twm, twm's
internal list of windows would have to be used rather than XQueryTree.
This requires more extensive changes to twm.

Emacs 18.52 has a problem in that is blackens its text cursor whenever
the mouse cursor enters its window, regardless of the focus.  This is
very misleading.  Another problem is that xclock seems to have set the
"input" field of the window manager hints to True, causing focus to be
(uselessly) set to it as I cycle around.  The way I coded it, the
focus should be set to the root when popping an output-only window,
though I'm not even sure I'd like that.  As it stands, I cannot use
the input field to differentiate xclock from other applications.  Are
there any other ways to decide an application does not want the kbd?

-Joshua Marantz
Viewlogic Systems, Inc.