How to forbid windows from stealing focus in XFce4?

Question

In XFce4, when I launch applications, I don't want them to appear above the windows I am currently using, or to show alert windows above my current work. Rather, I'd like the windows to load in the background and to not steal focus. The exception would be an alert window or dialog belonging to the application I'm using, e.g. if I am currently using LibreOffice Calc, and it gives me a pop-up to tell me an error, that window can be brought to focus.

Is there any way to prevent windows from stealing focus in Xfce4?

This is particularly annoying behaviour when you are typing a password. — countermode, May 03 '15 at 18:47
@countermode feature requested https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12200 — unhammer, Jan 18 '18 at 12:55
This solution worked for me : https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2049517 — fabriciobc, Jul 04 '18 at 18:53

John Lawrence Aspden · Answer 1 · 2019-07-08T15:52:41.170

19

Settings/Window Manager/Focus

Focus follows mouse (on) [shouldn't matter, but the focus stealing prevention setting seems to work better with this on]
Automatically give Focus to newly created windows (off)

Also

Settings/Window Manager Tweaks/Focus

Activate Focus Stealing Prevention (on)
Honor standard ICCCM focus hint (off)
When a window raises itself, (do nothing)

edited Jul 08 '19 at 15:52

answered May 08 '15 at 18:01

John Lawrence Aspden

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Xfce 4.12, does not work for all applications (e.g. NetBeans IDE 8.1), will steal focus (even when clicking in this window after splashscreen, it will just gain focus again later). – Yeti Sep 15 '16 at 06:52
5

Does not work for Intellij Idea either. – Klesun Mar 12 '18 at 13:11

score 6 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 21 '14 at 19:20

6

Settings manager >> window manager >> focus tab. Uncheck automatically give focus

answered Nov 21 '14 at 19:20

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Xfce 4.10: this does not work for me, I even activated `focus stealing prevention` in advanced settings. – hochl Apr 10 '15 at 19:09
3

Doesn't work for me either. XFCE 4.12 – Dean Brundage Oct 17 '15 at 00:08

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 11 '15 at 14:50

3

For me, Xfce's focus stealing prevention only works when you also have Focus Follows Mouse turned on.

Running Xfce 4.10.1

answered Jun 11 '15 at 14:50

TheAmigo

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I cannot confirm this – phil294 Oct 13 '18 at 19:41

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 25 '18 at 07:50

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If nothing from previous answers helped you, you must additionally go to Settings-> Window Manager Tweaks -> Accessiblity tab and unselect "Raise windows when any mouse button is pressed"

answered Nov 25 '18 at 07:50

likeanowl

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score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 16 '19 at 14:43

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Disabling these prevented focus changes in a Xubuntu session on

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 19.10
Release:    19.10
Codename:   eoan

Settings, Window Manager should set the same:

answered Dec 16 '19 at 14:43

Cees Timmerman

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do you mean 'all the things with the ticks should be turned off', or 'it should like like this'? – John Lawrence Aspden Dec 31 '19 at 17:14
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I meant "disabling these" as in toggling the enabled Boolean settings shown to the disabled state. Also i'm not sure how hinting relates to focus. – Cees Timmerman Jan 01 '20 at 19:15
`focus_hint` [appears to focus input windows and those that request focus.](https://github.com/xfce-mirror/xfwm4/search?q=focus_hint&unscoped_q=focus_hint) – Cees Timmerman Jan 03 '20 at 15:16

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered May 03 '15 at 18:31

0

In case you're using Compiz settings manager I was able to get focus to all new windows launched by setting (from the ccsm menu) General Options> Focus & Raise Behaviour>Focus Prevention Windows to Off

answered May 03 '15 at 18:31

mavenmaven

1

How to forbid windows from stealing focus in XFce4?

6 Answers6