Opening a window without activating it

[Andreas Falkenhahn]

> On Sun, May 16, 2010 at 11:42:59AM +0200, Andreas Falkenhahn wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> is it possible to open a window without it automatically becoming
>> active?
>> I see that there are two different calls to map a window: XMapWindow()
>> and
>> XMapRaised(). However, both calls open the window and make it active.
>> Can
>> I change this behaviour? I'd like to open a window and prevent it from
>> taking away user focus.
>
> That's really the responsibility of the window manager. Maybe you can
> set certain window properties or WM hints to prevent the WM from
> giving focus to the new window. Check out EWMH[0].

I already checked out EWMH but I don't see any properties in that
specification which could do what I want. But it must be possible to open
a window without taking away focus from the currently active window
because, for instance, on my openSUSE installation, I often get reminders
that new updates are available. These reminders are displayed in a little
pop up that opens right above the task bar but does *not* take away the
focus.

What I'm also wondering is where is the difference between XMapWindow()
and XMapRaised()? AFAICS, both calls do exactly the same...

Greets,

Andreas