Focus application on overlay layer doesn't turn back to it when parent windows are closed

[stefonarch]

System Information

• niri 25.01 (v0.1.10-349-g20769b4c)

• Distro: arch

In Qterminal git "Preferences" and "fontdialog" windows open on the overlay layer too, as qterminal dropdown mode does, using F12 { spawn "qterminal" "-d"; }.

When closing the font dialog focus should go back to "Preferences" but goes to the underlying top level window, same when closing "Preferences" dialog: focus should go back to the dropdown terminal.

Even when focus-follows-mouse max-scroll-amount="0%" is enabled this happens, terminal needs a click to get back focus.

Probably not many applications are on overlay windows, it looks like only kwin and hyprland get that focus handling right.

[YaLTeR]

So they open on layer-shell with on-demand focus? Yeah, niri doesn't currently keep the focus chain for layer-shell surfaces. I'll need to think of a way to implement it.

[stefonarch]

Not really a chain of overlay layers - the previous surface is temporarily set to the top layer, so only the most recent config window is on the overlay layer.

Like qterminal → Preferences → Set font is

  Top layer:
    Surface:
      Namespace: "dialog"
      Keyboard interactivity: on-demand

    Surface:
      Namespace: "dropdown_terminal"
      Keyboard interactivity: on-demand

  Overlay layer:
    Surface:                                                                                     
      Namespace: "dialog"                                                                        
      Keyboard interactivity: on-demand