I would really like to be able to switch to applications on non-visiable desktops using Alt Tab. VWMSwitchOnAnyFocus allows this but this features disadvantages slightly outway it's advantages. Specifically if I use !VWMLeft or !VWMRight to switch to a desktop with no applications open on it the VWM will automatically switch back to desktop with the application that has focus.

Does anyone know any clever tricks that will allow a theme to behave a little better with VWMSwitchOnAnyFocus enabled? Something that will make an application lose focus on the desktop you are switching from could make a difference.

Also does anyone know how to enable and disable VWMSwitchOnAnyFocus in a theme without recycling? Being able to enable and disable this on the fly could be a useful feature if there is no work around for the above described problem.

Well you can omit both VWMSwitchonanyfocus and VWMNoswitchonfocus and you'll get behavior somewhere inbetween. With the latest taskbar3 it will change VWMs when you click on a task tile, but still will not do so for alt+tabbing. Maybe you could make a request to Rabidcow to add some kind of special focus handling for alt+tabbing? He's usually pretty good about accomodating feature requests.

I'm not really wanting a new version of RabidVWM because of this post. Just thought if someone knew a good work around I would use it.

FWIW, it tries to work around the switching to an empty desk by giving focus to the VWM window, but it doesn't quite work right :(

I'm not sure why (or if) it doesn't let you turn it on/off with "!VWMToggle SwitchOnAnyFocus", I'll try to remember to look at that when I have a chance (probably July/Aug)

Humm, I had the same trouble with VWMSwitchOnAnyFocus but I just wanted to make some tests and add it again to the step.rc, and...
it works fine, now, allowing to switch using ALT-TAB and no switching back when switching to empty desks. I really don't know why it works now and I don't know if it'll work tomorrow or the day after...
Maybe everything depend on the modules loaded ?
Maybe the behaviour is different between Win2K and XP ? (I'm under 2K)

My bad for not reading all the doc. I didn't notice the VWMToggle bang. Thanks.

I'm using XP. I guess sometimes things don't get focus like they should. Outlook also frequently won't get focus when I switch to that desk. Maybe a related problem? Maybe Outlook is the actual cause.

At least I can enable and disable this feature with VWMToggle. I have no hesitation about adding this feature to my theme now :)