Mac: new windows don't grab focus correctly when main window is open on different monitor's Space

[morinted]

Summary

When running Plover with the main window open, spawning a new tool window on another monitor causes the main window to be focused instead of the tool window when using the Mac option "displays have separate spaces"

Reproducing

1. Start Plover on Mac with "displays have separate spaces" setting enabled
2. Drag Plover main window to monitor 1
3. Open a tool window, like LOOKUP, drag it to monitor 2
4. Close the tool window
5. Focus on some other application
6. Use a stroke mapped to {PLOVER:LOOKUP}
7. Expected: Tool window should be focused, actual: Plover main window is focused, tool window is unfocused.

Conditions:

• When tools are on the same monitor (Space), it works as expected.
• When all monitors are on the same Space, it works as expected.
• When the main Plover window is closed/hidden, it works as expected.

Plover Version

All QT versions of Plover

System

Mac 10.13+

[morinted]

Updated the main post to clarify that this only happens when you have a separate "space" (virtual desktop) for each monitor. I wasn't able to find a specific QT bug for this, and I figure because it's not too common to be spawning QDialogs without any focus on the QApplication (which we do through the use of chords).

1: Plover is open on left monitor, focus is on an application on right monitor.

2: Summon dictionary update with {plover:add_translation}. Notice that focus looks broken—add translation window should be focused, but focus is actually on main window. The add translation window opens, and then focus is taken by the main window all at once.

3: Pressing {plover:add_translation} again now actually focuses the correct window.

[morinted]

@benoit-pierre This issue is very annoying and I've been trying to think of a platform-specific fix.

So far, I've tried raising the main window first, or raising the pop-up, the main window, and reraising the pop-up, but it doesn't have the desired effect.

I think what might be necessary is something like

• If main window is open, focus that
• Wait for focus
• Open dialog normally

How might I accomplish this in QT? I think next I'm going to try raising the main application window, then putting the pop-up raising in a single shot.

[benoit-pierre]

Does changing the window activation behavior have any impact?

[benoit-pierre]

And just to clarify, this only happen if the main window is not minimized, right?