Panel's keyboard focus

[Matthew Weier OPhinney]

-- Johan H <jhg at ucs.co.za> wrote
(on Thursday, 12 June 2003, 09:36 AM +0200):
> On Wed, 2003-06-11 at 19:16, Karsten Luetkewitz wrote:
> > Currently the panel can receive keyboard focus, which means that
> > XFce-panel will always be one of the windows that are included in the
> > list of cycleable (Alt-Tab) windows. That is IMHO a huge usability
> > regression, I can't think of a sane reason to let the panel receive
> > keyboard focus. The following patch makes the panel not
> > keyboard-focusable, launcher menus etc are not affected by this patch.
> > 
> > http://p.plskthx.org/files/themes/xfce4/panel-avoid-keyboard-focus.patch
> 
> I find the panel in my tablist VERY anoying.  My solution is not to
> remove keyboard focus from the panel, but to stop it from appearing in
> my tablist. I dont have a patch right now.
<snip> 
> This makes the panel a dock-type window.  After my changes,  xfwm4
> ignores doc-type windows in the tablist. This affects gkrellm too, which
> is perfect for me.

Okay, I can see that. But what I'm wondering is, can you still get to
the panel for keyboard navigation *using* the keyboard? 

I'll admit, I don't like the fact that when I try and tab through my
windows, I also cycle through the panel, gkrellm, and the tasklist each
time. However, I also *do* appreciate that, when the need arises (e.g.,
my mouse isn't working), I *can* do just that. (Granted, I also have
epist and deskmenu running, and can do a surprising number of things
without ever needing to touch a mouse anyways...)

> Having the panel in my tablist is a `i will not this wm'  kind of
> issue.  These changes still allows me to use keyboard navigation on the
> panel.

On the other hand, not being able to get to the panel via keyboard nav
is another example of an "I will not use this wm" situation. I'd like to
see some sort of compromise -- maybe a keybinding for bringing focus to
the panel? (This might be something that can be done via net_wm
properties.)

-- 
Matthew Weier O'Phinney
matthew at weierophinney.net
http://matthew.weierophinney.net