CODEWITHSUNDEEP
windowsqtwinapi
Olumide
Olumide

Reputation: 5809

How to automatically restore focus to a launched application on Windows

I have developed a full-screen application that hooks into and launched by a 3rd party/client application. The problem is that the client application gets focus soon after it launches my application, with the result that although my application is full screen, and set to be on top, it does not receive keyboard input, as such the user has to click on it to bring it to focus, which makes for a poor user experience.

How can I restore focus to my application after the client acquires it?

If it matters, my application is written in C++ and has a QT UI.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 729

Answers (2)

Robert
Robert

Reputation: 1343

Here is the Qt documentation:

http://doc.qt.io/qt-4.8/qwidget.html#activateWindow

http://doc.qt.io/qt-4.8/qwidget.html#raise

http://doc.qt.io/qt-4.8/qwidget.html#setFocus

Hope it helps when called after launch...

Upvotes: 0

Olumide
Olumide

Reputation: 5809

Not quite the answer but the reason why my application does not have input focus. I'll let Charles Petzold explain (from Programming Windows 5ed, pg 213)

The Window that receives a particular keyboard event is the window that has input focus. The concept of input focus is closely related to the concept of the active window. The window with the input focus is either the active window or a descendant window of the active window -- that is , a child of the active window, or a child of a child of the active window, and so forth.

My Qt application is not spawned spawned by an active window and therefore does not have input focus. The solution therefore would be to parent my application to the active window. Unfortunately this is not straightforward in Qt, if at all possible.

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions