Feature Request: Add window rule to block xdg-activation focus stealing

[b0o]

When I click an external link in a Chrome app window (like a PWA), Niri switches my focus to an existing Chrome browser window, which might be on another workspace. This is pretty annoying since I didn't ask to leave my current workspace, I'd prefer for the link to open in the background.

Interestingly, running google-chrome-stable <url> from the CLI doesn't do this - it opens the URL without stealing focus.

I dug into the code a bit and it seems like Chrome must be requesting activation via xdg-activation.

I tried setting an open_focused false window rule on Chrome, but it doesn't help here since that only seems to affect new windows. I also tried debug.strict_new_window_focus_policy, but that doesn't help, since I assume Chrome has a valid token.

Would it be possible to add a window rule like block-xdg-activation that prevents a matching window from being activated via xdg-activation, even with a valid token? That way I could set it on Chrome and stay on my current workspace when clicking links.

[carmanaught]

What was your thinking on how this would be handled, or perhaps more to what I'm curious about, would you consider a strict focus stealing prevention to result in windows "demanding attention" or being "urgent"?

I've been doing testing and some inconsistency in behaviour with focus, focus stealing and window urgency has been bugging me, since I was hoping Niri would act similar to how it has been acting for me on Sway, which seems to be quite strict in preventing focus stealing, often resulting in windows that are demanding attention to be marked urgent, which is how I'd like the behaviour to be normally, though I'd still like the capability to specifically permit focus stealing for certain applications or windows.

Which is all to say that I like the idea of being more in control of preventing focus stealing or window activation, but for me personally, I'd also like to use window urgency as the way to identify that an application wants focus.

[kasraghu]

I think niri shouldn't do anything visually. It is up to the shell (DMS in my case) to do the visuals.

[kasraghu]

I stopped using warp-mouse-to-focus because of focus stealing.

[alarsyo]

I think #4092 should fix this :)