[sf-lug] any way to avoid firefox jumping to current workspace when clicking on a link in e.g. thunderbird?

[Michael Shiloh]

thanks, and thanks for the tip! i wasn't thinking. it should have 
occurred to me that (a) i should have given more info and (b) the window 
manager is probably the cause of this action.

thanks!

On 11/22/2011 02:56 PM, Rick Moen wrote:
> Michael, I have your answer, and also a friendly suggestion about future
> queries, to help make it less likely to encounter the frustrating
> situation where nobody understands your problem well enough to help you.
> It's sadly common for people to fail to get help because they
> overdefined and misdefined the problem while describing it.
>
> Quoting Michael Shiloh (michaelshiloh1010 at gmail.com):
>
>> i like to keep email and browsing on different workspaces.
>                                                   ^^^^^^^^^^
>
> Most of your readers won't know what you mean by 'workspace', because
> you didn't say.
>
>> however, whenever i click on an http url in thunderbird, firefox
>> bounces over to the current workspace.
>>
>> i want firefox to open the url, but to stay in its own workspace.
>>
>> anyone know how to do that?
>
> Your wording suggests that you're asking for help with Firefox
> configuration.  As it turns out, your problem isn't with configuration
> of Firefox at all, but rather with configuration of _Xfce workspaces_.
> I figured that out from your passing mention of Xubuntu near the
> _bottom_ of your post.  However, people will not be able to see past
> the misleading question, and thus you are unlikely to get useful
> answers.
>
> Anyway, upon looking up Xfce docs:  http://wiki.xfce.org/faq#window_manager
>
>    Firefox jumps between workspaces, why?
>
>    When a new tab is opened from an external link in Firefox, it asks the
>    WM to show the window containing the new tab. If the window that has
>    requested to be raised is not on the current desktop, the Xfce Window
>    manager will bring it to the current desktop by default. If you do not
>    want this behavior, there is a hidden option to control this behavior.
>    For Xfce 4.4 in ~/.config/xfce4/xfwm4/xfwm4rc you can put the following:
>
>    activate_action=bring|switch|none
>
>    For Xfce 4.6 you can go to Xfce Menu>  Settings>  Window Manager Tweaks
>    and go to the tab Focus, or you need to use the xfconf-query tool to
>    change the setting:
>
>    xfconf-query -c xfwm4 -p /general/activate_action -s bring|switch|none
>
>    As the name suggests, the "bring" option moves the window
>    requesting to be raised to the current workspace, the "switch"
>    option switches workspaces, and the "none" option takes no
>    action.
>
> I had no idea about that, until I Web-searched for 'xfce workspace link',
> which brought up the correct answer -- as the first hit.
>
>
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