Question:

Eclipse quick switch windows does not have focus, does not work without mouse move

Gabriella: 02 February 2022

Using Eclipse Neon on Linux Mint with Xfce and "focus follows mouse" enabled, I try to use "quick switch windows" or "next editor" (CTRL+E or CTRL+F6) in the default bindings. In both cases, weird things happen to the keyboard focus.

With "quick switch windows" the popup dialog appears at the top right of the editor, I am able to select another editor, its tab is moved to front, but I cannot type in the window. The keyboard focus seems to be nowhere at all. To type again in the window, I have to move the mouse out of the window, click and move it in again

With "next editor", a popup dialog appears roughly in the middle of the screen, but it does not work if the mouse is not, just by accident, inside the menu.

If I switch off "focus follows mouse", the two dialogues work as expected. But this is really no solution for me. This worked in previous versions of Eclipse.

Has anyone managed to find the one configuration tweak that gets me out of this, probably not related to eclipse but another application showing similar behavior?

Answer:

Camila: 02 February 2022

Found the problem: There is a setting in xfwm4-settings called 'New window focus'

this is how it works again

that I had deselected, because I hate it if applications started from a terminal take the fokus away from the terminal window. Yet, as soon as this option is selected again, Eclipse "next editor" and "quick switch windows" work again.

There is a certain logic to it, except that I would have thought the "new window focus" does not apply to in-application dialogues, like the one from "next-editor".