VS Code embedded views steal focus from the IDE

[kenzieschmoll]

I have seen this reproduce with the flutter sidebar and with the property editor. Particularly when a text field is present, if the the embedded flutter view has focus it will keep requesting it from the IDE and you can't get the code editor or embedded terminal for example to keep focus.

[paul-charlton]

When using hot reload (only tried on web) I've noticed that the widget inspector grabs focus every time, removing the focus on the code editor and in my case expanding the 'other' split view window. Gets quite annoying after a while.

Would this be the same issue - or something I should raise seperately?

[kenzieschmoll]

CC @elliette, @DanTup since users are experiencing this with the Inspector too.

[DanTup]

The original issue described here sounds like the same issues being discussed in flutter/flutter#142040 (comment).

I'm less sure about @paul-charlton's issue though - I'd be interested in more details about that (for example whether this is the whole VS Code app stealing focus from another window, or just focus within VS Code being bad).

[paul-charlton]

It's just within Vs code itself and while debugging chrome specifically. I'll get a screen recording tomorrow, but as quick overview:

I'll have an edit window open on the LHS pane and the inspector opens on the RHS, but the inspector is about a fifth of the size (apologies for the descriptions - I'm sure there are terms here I don't know).

Then when saving in the editor, the hot reload process will start and when it completes and the web has the latest code the widget inspector gets the focus and becomes the bigger window, with the code editor now being a fifth of the size.

The focus will be taken if I leave it, or even if I've jumped back into the editor before the reload process has completed

[paul-charlton]

@DanTup video attached (I save the file and then continue to type the comment)

vs.code.focus.issue.mp4

[DanTup]

@paul-charlton thanks! I can't reproduce your issue, but it does look like it's caused by focus being taken when the inspector refreshes. The resizing of the window is VS Code behaviour when a "group" of tabs gets focus but is below a minimum width.

I don't know if the focus stealing is related to the textbox issue noted above though.. If I put focus into a textbox (such as the Search input in the inspector tree) then I hit the original issue Kenzie reported, which is that I can never get focus back into the editor. This doesn't feel like the same issue as yours (because you clearly have focus in the editor).

I suggest we open a separate issue for that (for the stealing of focus rather than the resize, since the resize is just a result of the focus change). I presume that if you don't resize the inspector quite so small, that it still takes focus away from your editor, even though nothing changes size?

[paul-charlton]

Just tried that now and yeah it does, but not exactly the same. It gets the focus, however. it doesn't readjust the size of the tab group that the the widget inspector is in.

I was going to say that this behaviour was newish (last 4-6 weeks maybe), but it may just be because i'd resized the 'secondary' tab group smaller.

Not sure if it's related, but if the widget inspector has bugged out and doesn't connect to the debug session - it doesn't request/get the focus.

Shall i create a new issue, (the work around with minimum size is enough for me but happy to create if it'll help)?

[DanTup]

@paul-charlton if the inspector is unexpectedly stealing focus only after a refresh as part of a hot reload, I think that's worth having another issue for - it doesn't sound deliberate and I don't think it's the same issue as focus being immediately stolen each time.

The resizing by VS Code is by design, but if we fixed the focus issue, then it shouldn't happen on each hot reload, only when you manually move focus to it.