[xmonad] Emacs frame with STRUT+DOCK doesn't get keyboard focus

[Brandon Allbery]

2011/6/7 Ted Zlatanov <tzz at lifelogs.com>:
> On Tue, 7 Jun 2011 14:14:34 -0400 Brandon Allbery <allbery.b at gmail.com> wrote:
> BA> 2011/6/7 Ted Zlatanov <tzz at lifelogs.com>:
>>> OK, so it's not a bug?  It seems unreasonable to block docks from
>>> getting the keyboard focus.  Why does XMonad do it and others don't?
>
> BA> I suspect it's mostly a matter of cargo cult coding:  people blindly
> BA> copying code without really understanding what it does.  The author of
> BA> ManageHelpers understood well enough to include other possibilities.
>
> OK, but I'm talking about the default settings.  Is it reasonable to
> block docks from getting the keyboard focus by default?  What is gained
> by that?  Or is there no default and my configuration is the problem?

Most docks don't expect keyboard input directly and either open a new
window or explicitly request input focus (e.g. gnome mini-commander
applet), so users get confused when input focus goes to a dock
especially in click-to-focus mode.  I think one of the early
minimalist docks did the wrong thing with input focus, too.  In any
case, it's somewhat unusual for a dock to want the input focus, and
strange things can happen if you grant it.  (Even in newer ones; I had
some odd behavior from KDE4's Plasma while working on my
freedesktop.org extensions due to unexpected input focus.)
> BA> This replaces the "manageDocks" in manageHook, but you still need the
> BA> rest of the ManageDocks machinery to handle the struts.
>
> OK.  Do you want me to open a bug or a wishlist item for this to remind
> you to put that functionality in the core?

Iyt wouldn't go into core, it would go into contrib with ManagDocks
and ManageHelpers.  I don't need a bug for it though (well, there
already is one) as it's in my own to-dos and I'm using xmonad
regularly enough that just use is enough of a reminder that it's
incomplete. :)