Make "Focus on Switch" temporary (not recorded in stack)

[joeytwiddle]

I am using the standard Application Switcher, but I suspect this will apply to all switchers: Ring Switcher, Shift Switcher, Static Application Switcher etc.

I like to use the "Focus on Switch" option, purely for visual effect. When Alt-Tabbing through windows, most window managers will highlight the current window in its "active" colours. This is useful as a clear indication of which window will be focused if the Alt key is released.

The problem is, when we enable this option in Compiz, that temporary focusing also brings the window to the top of the "window stack"! (Unlike in other mature window managers.) This basically makes it impossible for the window stack to act in a most-recently-used manner, which is what it did in Windows 3 and every OS/WM since then. :-p Fluxbox also broke this behaviour, but then fixed it again. :)

I cannot think of any reason why a user would find this desirable. This is most likely why "Focus on Switch" is not enabled by default.

If the "Focus on switch" option is forced by the framework to bring the temporarily focused window to the top of the stack, it should at least try to push it back down to where it was in the stack when the user continues cycling to the next window.

(One edge-case to consider is if a new window pops up whilst we are Alt-Tabbing.)

[Sam Spilsbury (smspillaz)]

Yeah, this is definitely on my (very long) list. It isn't entirely trivial to do, but I know how to do it.