[PATCH] Introduce keyboard grabbing protocol

[Carsten Haitzler (The Rasterman)]

On Tue, 30 Aug 2016 19:33:17 +0300 Constantine Kharlamov <hi-angel at ya.ru> said:

> 2016-08-30 15:22 GMT+02:00 Jonas Ådahl <jadahl at gmail.com>:
> > I think having a grab would mean one is focused. Though the point of
> > having a key grabbing protocol is simply to override the compositors
> > keybindings. A virtual machine will be very annoying to work with if
> > you can't have the VM or remote desktop client override those. For
> > example I want to Alt-Tab inside the VM or inside the remotely
> > controlled desktop; I wouldn't want to be forced to reconfigure all
> > remotely controlled desktops or virtual machines to use Ctrl-Tab.
> 
> Hello, coming here from the news.
> 
> I'm having the opposite use-case: at office I need to work with WinXP in
> VirtualBox, and it is annoying as hell that I have to press an additional key
> to switch desktop/window in the host system. It is annoying enough, that the
> fact that an ancient version of Awesome WM didn't allow to grab its keys
> become a show stopper for upgrading Awesome, for migrating to i3, and now to
> upgrading whole system.
> 
> If one really wants some apps to grub Compositor's keys, I think the
> compositors should offer the user to (dis)allow it.

that's the point. use a compositor that lets you enable or disable this. or
provide patches. compositors are now in charge of this policy. (likely they
should allow disabling on a per-window basis and be able to re-identify the
window/surface again next time it's created so it can re-apply the ban). just
because there is a protocol does not mean compositor have to slavishly
implemented it globally for everything. they can choose not to  as they see fit
and of course you are left with the consequences. if the vm decides that as a
result of the grab error it will exit... who do you blame? compositor that is
saying "no" and tell it to always say yes... or the app that chooses to take
this as a fatal condition and exit? :)

-- 
------------- Codito, ergo sum - "I code, therefore I am" --------------
The Rasterman (Carsten Haitzler)    raster at rasterman.com