Don't let background applications capture keyboard events in xorg

Martin Kunev

3/28/24, 10:17 PM

I have noticed that some applications are able to capture keyboard events while in the background and prevent the foreground application from receiving the event.

Some context:

I use ctrl+r to search bash's history and the application simplescreenrecorder uses ctrl+r to toggle recording. If I go to the terminal emulator and press ctrl+r while simplescreenrecorder is on, it starts recording (and I cannot search bash's history). Another example - when I press alt+tab to see a window list (holding down alt) and then press escape (because I don't want to switch the active window), the browser would catch the escape key event and sometimes this messes up the web application I'm using.

I see the same behavior with both Mate and Xfce so I'm assuming it has something to do with xorg (I think it's less likely that gtk+ is doing something funny).

How do I ensure that a background application cannot capture an event intended for the foreground one? Or is it possible to set this up for specific applications?

0 + 0

xorg

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: Don't let background applications capture keyboard events in xorg

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