Arch Linux

silverhammermba

Wiki Maintainer

Registered: 2011-04-14

Posts: 156

Changing Window Focus Without WM

I'm trying to run Steam in big picture mode without a WM. This works almost perfectly except that Steam doesn't pass focus properly when starting games or streaming.

For example, when I start a game, big picture mode goes black but I don't see the game come up. However I can get the game to come up by manually sending X commands:

xdotool windowunmap 0xa0000b # window ID of Steam, unmapping it makes the game window display
xdotool windowfocus 0x120000b # window ID of game, this makes it accept controller input

And then when quitting the game I can basically undo the steps: map Steam and focus it.

First: why is this happening? My guess is that Steam relies on the WM to pass focus to the new window.
Second: how can I work around this? Would I need some kind of super-minimal WM that can focus new windows as they appear?