There was a reddit thread where someone pointed out that when an window is activated by an application, it is not brought to the top. I’ve encountered this too with multiple applications and it always throws me for a loop initially.
I was wondering if this is just a missing option, but I couldn’t find anything related. I also couldn’t find anything in Window Rules other than always keeping an application on top, nothing about activation.
The easy way to reproduce this:
Have a browser open like Firefox or Chrome and the and Dolphin open to the Downloads directory.
Put the browser on top of Dolphin or full screen where Dolphin isn’t visible.
After downloading a file, select the download icon and click the folder icon to open the Downloads folder.
While the Dolphin window in the Downloads directory is open and selected, and the task bar shows as much, it does not jump to the top to be visible.
I realize quickly what has happened and either tab to or select Dolphin, but I can imagine people getting confused by this since the default behavior on Mac and Win is for an activated window to be brought to the top by default.
I know this isn’t severe, it’s really more of a polish thing but definitely falls under usability and possibly even accessibility.
If it is a thing that should be fixed, I can write up a bug and put all the details in for it. Just wanted to check here first.
I had thought that setting “Focus stealing prevention = None” in “Window Behavior” would change this, but it doesn’t. Not sure whether that’s intended or not.
This is part of the so-called “Focus Stealing Prevention” and it can be configured in multiple levels.
On level “None” the window manager will allow windows to move themselves “to the top” and gain focus so what you are experiencing is one of the other levels.
The most common configuration only allows the application with the currently focused window to open a new window in that state.
If the new window is from a different application, e.g. a browser launching the file manager, then the former can pass a so-called “activation token” to the latter so it can request focus based on the first application’s “authority”.
It could be that this is not happening in your setup for some reason
On my system, “None” behaves the same as “Low” and all the other levels when I follow OP’s steps to reproduce. Whatever the level, I get exactly the same behaviour as OP with Dolphin remaining invisible until manually brought to the front.
I also tried the Focus Stealing Prevention on None and still the same behavior.
So if I’m understanding it, Firefox needs to send an “activation token” to Dolphin in order for it to come to the front if Focus Stealing is on anything but None? Or even when it is set to None?
The window is activated, it’s highlighted in the task manager, it’s just not brought to top.
Or is this possibly a bug, with the intended behavior actually being to be brought to the top?
Doesn’t surprise me. VLC also does it, but by default it runs in Xwayland and even when you set it up for Wayland (which is a process in itself) it still doesn’t do it even when specified, so I’d just chalk that up to a VLC not doing it.
However, in Firefox, this happens in the task manager:
So Dolphin is highlighted as if it’s activated. Or does Firefox also need to tell it to come to the top?
EDIT: The functionality works in KDE apps, so it doesn’t seem to be a general bug, they behave as they should.
Either way, I can definitely wait until 6.5 to see if the behavior changes. It’s not really critical, just one of those things.
The window being marked like that in the task manager just means Dolphin tried to activate itself but couldn’t - in this case because Firefox didn’t pass an activation token to Dolphin.
