i3: Focus does not follow window with directional move when focus_follows_mouse is enabled

I’m submitting a…

[x] Bug
[ ] Feature Request
[ ] Documentation Request
[ ] Other (Please describe in detail)

Expected Behavior

I have the following bindings: bindsym $mod+Control+H move left bindsym $mod+Control+L move right

When I use these to move a window from e.g. workspace 1 on my laptop display to workspace 2 on my monitor, I would expect the focus to follow the window as it moves. It is the usual behaviour for focus to follow the window as you move it left and right within a workspace, so I think it’s reasonable to expect this to apply when moving it across a workspace with “move left” or “move right” (or even up and down if you have that kind of monitor layout).

Current Behavior

If in my example scenario, there is already one or more windows in workspace 2, the window focus ends up on one of them instead of the one I’m moving. This behaviour is quite annoying because I then have to pause to find out where the focus has moved to, then move it back to the window I was moving so I can continue moving it to the desired location. It’s really not very intuitive.

Reproduction Instructions

To replicate:

2 displays needed
Open one window on a workspace in primary display
Open a second window on another workspace in the secondary display
Use “move <left|down|up|right>” to move the window on the primary display to the workspace on the secondary display
Observe that focus has not followed the window being moved per the usual behaviour

Environment

Output of i3 --moreversion 2>&-:

i3 version: 4.16

i3 config: https://pastebin.com/mgE6BRwr

- Linux Distribution & Version: Ubuntu 18.04, Linux 4.15.0-38-generic
- Are you using a compositor (e.g., xcompmgr or compton): No

I also see that this issue has been raised before in #2257 (but not #809 which is a completely separate issue), and it seems it is definitely not the intended behaviour https://github.com/i3/i3/issues/2257#issuecomment-214448093 and yet it still remains…

Many thanks, Jonathan

About this issue

Original URL
State: closed
Created 6 years ago
Reactions: 10
Comments: 29 (13 by maintainers)

Commits related to this issue

Fix focus issue when moving windows across outputs Fixes #3518 Tried to add a test but it also succeeds with version before patch Co-Authored-By: Orestis <orestisflo@gmail.com> — committed to orestisfl/i3 by algmyr 3 years ago
Fix focus issue when moving windows across outputs Fixes #3518 Tried to add a test but it also succeeds with version before patch Co-Authored-By: Orestis <orestisflo@gmail.com> — committed to orestisfl/i3 by algmyr 3 years ago
Fix focus issue when moving windows across outputs Fixes #3518 This fix avoids the issue of consuming our own warp events by never calling warp on the wrong container. Tried to add a test but it al... — committed to orestisfl/i3 by algmyr 3 years ago
Fix focus issue when moving windows across outputs Fixes #3518 This fix avoids the issue of consuming our own warp events by never calling warp on the wrong container. Tried to add a test but it al... — committed to orestisfl/i3 by algmyr 3 years ago
Fix focus issue when moving windows across outputs Fixes #3518 This fix avoids the issue of consuming our own warp events by never calling warp on the wrong container. Tried to add a test but it al... — committed to orestisfl/i3 by algmyr 3 years ago
Fix focus issue when moving windows across outputs Fixes #3518 This fix avoids the issue of consuming our own warp events by never calling warp on the wrong container. Tried to add a test but it al... — committed to orestisfl/i3 by algmyr 3 years ago
turn off mouse_warping This is a workaround for focus going to the wrong window when moving a window onto a different monitor. Issue is https://github.com/i3/i3/issues/3518 — committed to kjetilho/setupfiles by kjetilho 3 years ago
turn off mouse_warping This is a workaround for focus going to the wrong window when moving a window onto a different monitor. Issue is https://github.com/i3/i3/issues/3518 — committed to kjetilho/setupfiles by kjetilho 3 years ago

Most upvoted comments

Same here. I have 4.16.1 too.

Ergus on Jul 9, 2019

I can reproduce this issue with 4.16.1.

Natureshadow on Jun 24, 2019

Still present in 4.19, but for me mouse_warping none is an acceptable workaround. (I have not been able to force the problem to reappear so far, anyway.)

kjetilho on Mar 11, 2021

Played around a bit and focusing the correct container before doing the workspace back and forth to get the correct events triggered seems to do the right thing superficially. The correct container is focused on the other side, and the workspace indicator is updated which is what the workspace switching is intending to do.

         con_focus(con);
         focused = old_ws; 
         workspace_show(ws);

@orestisfl considering you were the one to commit the fix for this years back, do you happen to have any idea if reversing the order of operations here would break anything?

algmyr on Oct 17, 2021

EDIT: Also, for me it seems to be that it’s when focus_follows_mouse and mouse_warping are both enabled. If I disable either one then it works fine, at least for as long as I tested it.

Yes. I have the same issue and it’s a major problem. I want

the mouse pointer to move along window by window as I put focus by keybind on different tiled windows in a multi-monitor setup AND
windows to receive focus upon mouseover.

Unfortunately this is not possible when the config says: focus_follows_mouse yes mouse_warping output

I think it’s mouse_warping output that does not allow the pointer to move along window by window by keybind. There should be more options to mouse_warping, for example “window”.

ersi-dnd on Nov 18, 2018

Reopening to keep it separate from #2257 in case the causes are different. I also think that the behavior with mouse_warping is a bit problematic.

orestisfl on Nov 10, 2018