Sticky window is forced to be always on top

[HitoriSensei]

yabai -m window --toggle sticky makes window stay on all spaces but also forces window to be always on top of other windows.

Toggling float on a sticky window makes no difference.

Is this a bug or a feature?

Is there a way to make a window stay on all spaces and not always on top?

[koekeishiya]

This is intended. There is option in yabai to make this optional without editing the source code (src/window_manager.c).

[koekeishiya]

The fact that a sticky window will still become top-most even if window_topmost setting is disabled is something that I would consider a bug.

A sticky window however will be treated as floating implicitly, as it makes no sense for it not to be (can't be managed/tiled on multiple spaces simultaneously).

[HitoriSensei]

Thank you for the response.

I've briefly checked the code in src/window_manager.c as you suggested and if I understand correctly, command yabai -m window --toggle sticky
executes void window_manager_toggle_window_sticky(struct space_manager *sm, struct window_manager *wm, struct window *window)

Assuming the window is not sticky when called, we are evaluating the following code branch:

void window_manager_toggle_window_sticky(struct space_manager *sm, struct window_manager *wm, struct window *window)
{
       ...
        struct view *view = window_manager_find_managed_window(wm, window);
        if (view) {
            space_manager_untile_window(sm, view, window);
            window_manager_remove_managed_window(wm, window->id);
            window_manager_purify_window(wm, window);
        }
        window_manager_make_sticky(window->id, true);
}

There are no conditions here for floating and none of the space_manager_untile_window, window_manager_remove_managed_window, window_manager_purify_window trigger window float.

Then the window_manager_make_sticky(window->id, true); is called:

void window_manager_make_sticky(uint32_t wid, bool sticky)
{
     if (socket_connect_un(&sockfd, g_sa_socket_file)) {
        snprintf(message, sizeof(message), "window_sticky %d %d", wid, sticky);
        socket_write(sockfd, message);
        socket_wait(sockfd);
    }
    socket_close(sockfd);

    if (socket_connect_un(&sockfd, g_sa_socket_file)) {
        snprintf(message, sizeof(message), "window_level %d %d", wid, sticky ? kCGFloatingWindowLevelKey : kCGNormalWindowLevelKey);
        socket_write(sockfd, message);
        socket_wait(sockfd);
    }
}

Am I guessing correctly that

snprintf(message, sizeof(message), "window_level %d %d", wid, sticky ? kCGFloatingWindowLevelKey : kCGNormalWindowLevelKey);

makes the window top-most?

If yes, then there is no way to prevent floating without code modification because window level parameter sticky ? kCGFloatingWindowLevelKey : kCGNormalWindowLevelKey bases only on the sticky variable.

Is setting the window_level with kCGFloatingWindowLevelKey needed for stickiness to work?

If not and if the assumptions and reasoning are correct, maybe it would be possible to add a global config option to ignore setting window level together with making it sticky?

[HitoriSensei]

I would also like to add that I don't use any of the awesome tiling features of yabai, I use it only to switch between spaces instantly and make windows stay on all spaces.

Since yabai also supports window floating command I would love to use the feature (I currently use Afloat to make windows top-most)

[HitoriSensei]

And yes, I am setting the window_topmost to off:

yabai -m config window_topmost off

[koekeishiya]

Sticky windows no longer become topmost, regardless of whether or not window_topmost is enabled or not. Sticky windows will still remain floating, in that they are not tiled.

There is a new option topmost availble to the window --toggle command; e.g: yabai -m window --toggle topmost that can toggle topmost for any given window.

There is also a new option available to rules, topmost=on|off.

This should allow for greater flexibility for the user in a fairly easy-to-use way.

You can make any arbitrary window both sticky and topmost using something like the following:

# toggle sticky, topmost and resize to picture-in-picture size
alt - p : yabai -m window --toggle sticky;\
          yabai -m window --toggle topmost;\
          yabai -m window --grid 5:5:4:0:1:1

The exact same result can be achieved through a single rule as well, if automating said operation for certain windows is more appealing.

[dominiklohmann]

The window attribute topmost is still missing I think. Haven't gotten around to testing it yet, but I don't see it anywhere in the commit. It's necessary with the toggleable attributes so you can selectively turn it on/off for windows from scripts.

[koekeishiya]

Good catch, thanks. Added to window queries as well.