Weird focus problem with GNUstep applications in WindowMaker

[Eric Brunel]

Hello all,

I'm currently using the latest Debian Linux distribution with  
WindowMaker as my window manager and a few GNUstep applications,  
mainly GWorkspace and Terminal. And I have a weird problem with the  
keyboard focus. The problem seems to happen only when a window is  
focused automatically by WindowMaker. In this case, most of the time,  
if I type a key corresponding to a menu shortcut, the corresponding  
menu item will be triggered. But if the key is not a keyboard shortcut  
for a menu item, it will go to the application window normally. So for  
example, if I start to type 'cd' in a terminal window, the 'c' will  
trigger the Edit/Copy menu item, and only the 'd' will appear in the  
terminal. There doesn't seem to be any visual hint when the problem  
happens, the window seems focused, with its title bar in the correct  
style. And the problem does not always happen, but happens quite often  
anyway.

Usually, clicking on another window, then back on the previous one, or  
playing with the window a bit will solve the problem. But if another  
window is opened on top of it and then closed, the focus might get  
messed up again This forces me to be very careful and test every  
window each time it gets focused automatically, which is quite  
painful. I had the same problem after resizing an already active   
window too.

I tried changing a few WindowMaker options, like 'Do not let  
applications receive the click used to focus windows' and  
'Automatically focus new windows', but whether they're checked or not,  
the problem still happens.

Is there any workaround for this? Or a trick to make it work  
correctly? The versions I'm using are the ones included in Debian 5.0  
(lenny), which are:
WindowMaker 0.92.0
GNUstep make 2.0.6
GNUstep base 1.16.1
GNUstep GUI 0.14.0
GNUstep back 0.14

Thanks!
 - Eric -