How to deactivate window in Qt - linux

I am trying to create a dockable window in Qt (it sits taking 4px width at the edge of the screen, always on top and it slides out when you hover it). I have to use WindowFlag BypassX11WindowManager (in order to hide taskbar hint, disable moving/resizing/etc. from window manager). I use these flags:
Qt::FramelessWindowHint
Qt::CustomizeWindowHint
Qt::X11BypassWindowManagerHint
Qt::WindowStaysOnTopHint
When I need my dock to be activated, I use the activateWindow() method. However, I have no idea, how to deactivate it.
Is there a way I can force my window deactivate? Now I can do it only by clicking another window and then return to the one that was active before revealing dock.

You should be able to use ->hide() to simply hide it if you don't want it to appear at certain points.
I assume, by the way, you know there is QDockWidget/ class that may help you as well. It's unclear from the above if you're using it or not.

Related

Electron: Is it possible to set the current window to be frameless?

I would like to be able to toggle between framed and frameless window in my Electron app, without needing to construct a new window. This is because this option is a different view than what would be initially loaded, therefore it would be nice if there is a way to change the current window to be frameless.
I have found window.setFullscreen() for toggling between full screen mode. I've not been able to find anything similar for frameless window. Is there any such method or workaround that I'm not seeing?
As the docs go, you enable or disable window frame at the time of creation of browser window. After that, there are no methods you can call to enable or disable frame. However, if you really really want that option, there may be a workaround. And a workaround, is well, a workaround.
Create 2 browser windows, one over the other. The first one being transparent window(with frame and click-through) and the second one being your content window(without frame).
Implement your custom solution to keep size and position of both the windows in sync. Use ipc to share data between the windows.
Toggle the visibility of the transparent browser window to show/hide frame.
Some relevant resources:
Creating frameless window : https://electronjs.org/docs/api/frameless-window#create-a-frameless-window
Creating transparent window : https://electronjs.org/docs/api/frameless-window#transparent-window

How to make an overlay which capture no events

I would like to draw some sort of window on top of all the other windows. For example, to display some debugging infos (like conky) or things like a timer.
The main thing is that I would like to able to continue using the other windows while using it (the events go through transparently).
I've tried doing it with pygtk, pyqt and others but can't find a way to make it a real overlay with no event capture.
Is there some low-level x11 solution?
I think the Composite-extension-approach will not work when a compositing manager is running (and thus Composite's overlay window is already used).
Since you explicitly mention "no event capture":
The SHAPE extension allows to set some different shapes for a window. Version 1.1 of this extension added the "input" shape. Just setting this to an empty region should pretty much do what you want.
Some concrete example of exactly what I think you ask for can be found in Conky's source code: http://sources.debian.net/src/conky/1.10.3-1/src/x11.cc/?hl=769#L764-L781
Edit: Since you said that you didn't find anything in Gtk (well, PyGtk), here is the function that you need in Gtk: https://developer.gnome.org/gdk3/stable/gdk3-Windows.html#gdk-window-input-shape-combine-region
You might need Composite extension + GetOverlayWindow request:
Version 0.3 of the protocol adds the Composite Overlay Window, which
provides compositing managers with a surface on which to draw without
interference. This window is always above normal windows and is always
below the screen saver window. It is an InputOutput window whose width
and height are the screen dimensions. Its visual is the root visual
and its border width is zero. Attempts to redirect it using the
composite extension are ignored. This window does not appear in the
reply of the QueryTree request. It is also an override redirect
window. These last two features make it invisible to window managers
and other X11 clients. The only way to access the XID of this window
is via the CompositeGetOverlayWindow request. Initially, the Composite
Overlay Window is unmapped.
CompositeGetOverlayWindow returns the XID of the Composite Overlay
Window. If the window has not yet been mapped, it is mapped by this
request. When all clients who have called this request have terminated
their X11 connections the window is unmapped.
Composite managers may render directly to the Composite Overlay
Window, or they may reparent other windows to be children of this
window and render to these. Multiple clients may render to the
Composite Overlay Window, create child windows of it, reshape it, and
redefine its input region, but the specific arbitration rules followed
by these clients is not defined by this specification; these policies
should be defined by the clients themselves.
C api : XCompositeGetOverlayWindow
PyGTK Solution:
I think the composite and shapes X extensions are sufficiently ubiquitous and shall assume here that they are active on your system. Here's PyGtk code for this:
# avoid title bar and standard window minimize, maximize, close buttons
win.set_decorated(False)
# make the window stick above all others (super button will still override it in the z-order, which is fine)
win.set_keep_above(True)
# make events pass through
region = cairo.Region(cairo.RectangleInt(0, 0, 0, 0))
my_window.input_shape_combine_region(region)
win.show_all()
# set the entire window to be semi-transparent, if we like
win.set_opacity(0.2)
Basically what this does is tell Gtk that other than pixel (0,0) the entire window my_window should not be considered part of itself in terms of event propagation. That in turn, according to my current understanding means that when the pointer moves and clicks, the events go to the underlying window under the pointer position, as if my_window was not there.
Caveat:
This does allow your overlay window being the focus window (due to user-solicited window switching or just because it pops up and gets the focus when your application starts). Which means that for example, keyboard events will still undesirably go to it up until the user has clicked through it to make it lose focus in favor of whatever window is under the cursor. I would likely use the approach described here to iron out this aspect.
If there's a different and proper approach for making a portion of the screen "display stuff but not receive events", without building an oddball window like above over it, I'm happy to learn about it.
I assume that one's particular desktop environment (gnome, unity, etc. on linux) may interfere with this solution depending on version and configuration, on some occasions.

X11: frameless resizeable windows

Can I have a frameless but resizeable window in X?
Setting just MWM_DECOR_RESIZEH without the other flags doesn't make it resizeable.
I can resize it myself manually but then I need to scrape for themed mouse cursors which are non-standardized and are also different for each corner and side.
There are exactly two ways to resize windows:
Leave it to the window manager and be happy. This is recommended way for X. If someone don't like it, he can install another WM that will make it better.
Make it by yourself - draw border around window, track the mouse cursor and when the user drags the edges - resize the window in a way you like. In this case you must set the override-redirect flag of the window and WM will not mess with it.

In gnome 3, how to let a window get focus but not on the top?

Windows get focus is meaning that you can type in something in that. But at the same time, I hope that windows not to cover some others. How to config gnome 3 to implement that?
Leaving a window in focus though not on top of the screen is quite easy in Gnome. It is possible to give each and every window a special attribut which will shift their priority on the screen.
First, right click the titlebar of the application which should always be on top. A small menu should pop up. Now just select the option "Always on top" and you are done. This option may be parsed to multiple windows. Independently of which window is in focus, the application with this attribute will always cover it.
By the way the so called "Titlebar Actions" can be configured through the gnome-tweak-tool. Under the "Windows" tab you may define what should happen on a double click, a middle click or a secondary/right-mouse click.

Keep taskbar icon, replace MFC dialog

I have a MFC dialog based application. User can change the language of the dialog, and I made this by closing existing dialog, and opening another with changed language. The problem is that the effect in the taskbar is that one icon is removed, and another identical is created in its place. If my application's icon is not the last icon in the task bar it will be perceived as it was moved to the end of taskbar icon set.
I want to retain icon's position in the taskbar, and rather to prevent icon flicker at all from happening. How do I do that?
The application must support OS'es from Windows XP to Windows 7.
EDIT: alternative question for which I would accept an answer is how to create an invisible window that is nevertheless shown in the taskbar, and how to forward relevant window messages from that window to my main window?
Make the dialog a child of another outer parent window. The parent can be a dialog or any other kind of window; all it will be providing is the title bar. If the user tries to resize it it will have to forward resizing commands to the dialog, but otherwise you shouldn't need to do much in the parent window.
Why not replace the dialog with a CFormView instead? That way there's a frame window that wraps around the dialog (which is embedded in a form view) and it's the frame window that owns the taskbar icon.
Create an SDI application that displays a CFormView. Display the dialog in the default language (or whatever langauge the user previously chose) on initialization. When the user chooses the 'change language' option, simply change the form view that's being displayed with a new one.
Bonus feature: with this design, the framework will take care of things like language-specific accelerators and menus for you with no effort on your part.
For more on how to do this, check out http://www.codeguru.com/cpp/w-d/doc_view/viewmanagement/article.php/c3341/Multiple-Views-Using-SDI.htm

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