Xfce Forum

Facey

Member

Registered: 2025-12-16

Posts: 3

Xfce panel focus issues

I'm coming from a Windows environment and am trying to set up the UX in a very similar way to Windows.

I've moved the panel to the bottom (and I've gotten rid of the MacOS style dock), however when clicking on the panel the window that currently has focus does not lose this focus (it would in Windows). It also does not lose focus when using the menus on the panel (e.g. the application menu).

This is very jarring and has consequences when using the context menu key on the keyboard (after having clicked on the xfce-panel) the context menu is opened for the element within the focused window.

Expected behaviour: Focus is shifted from the active window to the panel
Actual behaviour: The active window does not change (i.e. focus is not shifted to the panel)

I've had a look at the options for the panel but can see nothing relating to the changing of focus.

How can the panel itself be given focus when interacted with? TIA

Last edited by Facey (2025-12-16 10:37:47)

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 12,483

Re: Xfce panel focus issues

How can the panel itself be given focus when interacted with?

What exactly are you intending to do with the panel that would require it to work like a window and receive focus?

This is how I understand it: By design, it is considered a dock (_NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE_DOCK) and as such, the window manager is instructed to treat it in such a way that prevents it from receiving explicit input focus when mapped or clicked.

Last edited by ToZ (2025-12-17 00:03:48)

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Facey

Member

Registered: 2025-12-16

Posts: 3

Re: Xfce panel focus issues

If focus needs to be taken away from the currently active window I'd usually just select the taskbar and then perform whatever keyboard input was required (to prevent the keyboard input being sent to the active window). In this example the context menu key on the keyboard.

Typically I'd use this when pressing the web browser key on the keyboard (to open a new web browser). Usually when the active window is the browser itself, the key causes the current tab to go to the homepage, but when the browser isn't the active window it opens up a new browser. However it seems this behaviour is not the case with the default Xfce configuration

I don't know how, further down the line, the issues this unexpected behaviour (at least unexpected by me) might cause so am trying to ensure everything is configured how I'm used to

chang-zhao

Member

Registered: 2023-11-20

Posts: 52

Re: Xfce panel focus issues

If focus needs to be taken away from the currently active window I'd usually just select the taskbar and then perform whatever keyboard input was required (to prevent the keyboard input being sent to the active window). In this example the context menu key on the keyboard.

Typically I'd use this when pressing the web browser key on the keyboard (to open a new web browser). Usually when the active window is the browser itself, the key causes the current tab to go to the homepage, but when the browser isn't the active window it opens up a new browser. However it seems this behaviour is not the case with the default Xfce configuration

In my experience, pressing "Browser" key always creates a new browser window in XFCE. If you want a new tab in the existing and focused window, you can press "New tab" hotkey (Ctrl-T). Perhaps it's a matter of habit.

To un-focus current window, you can either click some panel item like "Show Desktop" (that would minimize all windows), or you can make your Panel shorter than the screen side it's attached to. E.g. if your screen is 1920 px wide, you can set your main panel length to 1800 px, and the rectangle in the corner will show a part of Desktop. Clicking that with right-click will give you the Context menu. Clicking that with left-click will un-focus the current window, so pressing Menu key then will give you the Context menu.

PS. Also, to invoke Desktop context menu from any window, you can press Ctrl-Esc (or whatever hotkey you set for that).

Last edited by chang-zhao (2025-12-23 18:09:14)