virt-manager intercepts WM hotkeys

[reet-]

This is similar to issue #496, but for virt-manager. VirtualBox works as expected in my awesomewm.

Output of awesome --version:

awesome v4.3 (Too long) • Compiled against Lua 5.3.3 (running with Lua 5.3) • D-Bus support: ✔ • execinfo support: ✔ • xcb-randr version: 1.6 • LGI version: 0.9.2

How to reproduce the issue:

Start virt-manager, start virtual machine. As soon as the virtual machine has focus, all keyboard is grabbed until the focus is removed via mouse pointer or the explicit release key combo (CTRL+ALT) is pressed.

Actual result:

One has to always press CTRL+ALT or move the the mouse before e.g. another tag can be selected via keyboard shortcut. If the VM is Microsoft Windows, and the "mouse-move technique" is used, switching to another tag works, but the Windows VM still displays the start menu (sometimes). So it seems both (WM and Windows VM) get (parts) of the keys pressed.

Expected result:

Some WM keys should remain in the host (e.g. Mod4 1-4), so no additional CTRL+ALT is required.

Is this possible somehow? I tried with awful.keygrabber, but it never receives an event if the VM has focus.

[sclu1034]

AFAIK this is "working as intended". virt-manager tells the X server "I want exclusive keyboard access" and X complies. A window manager has no saying in whether an X client is allowed to grab exclusive keyboard access, since it's technically "just" a client itself.

[reet-]

Thanks for your answer. What is the difference to the VBox bug then?

Isn't awesomeWM a "re-parenting" window manager, having control over all its child windows? Or is the flow of keyboard input events from the client (virt-manager) to the top?

Thanks!