Is there anything built-in for bringing a window to the front? I'm trying to build some logic to ei...

# compose-desktop

[rob42]

Is there anything built-in for bringing a window to the front?

I'm trying to build some logic to either (a) open a specific window, or (b) bring that window to the front if it's already open.

[rob42]

• I can toggle alwaysOnTop on/off to achieve this, but that feels unacceptably hacky.
• I can also use Swing to do this from inside the window where I have a handle (e.g. window.toFront()), but I'd like to achieve a design where the window isn't responsible for bringing itself to the front

[Alexander Maryanovsky]

window.toFront() is the right way

[Alexander Maryanovsky]

Keep a list of windows you have open and call toFront() on it when you need

[Alexander Maryanovsky]

I have something like this:

/**
     * Shows the settings window on the given pane.
     */
    fun showSettingsWindow(pane: SettingsPane = SettingsPane.Default) {
        when (val state = settingsWindowState) {
            is SettingsWindowState.Closed -> settingsWindowState = SettingsWindowState.Open(pane)
            is SettingsWindowState.Open -> {
                state.pane = pane
                state.window?.toFront()
            }
        }
    }


    /**
     * Closes the settings window.
     */
    fun closeSettingsWindow() {
        settingsWindowState = SettingsWindowState.Closed
    }

[Alexander Maryanovsky]

and in SettingsWindow I have

Window(...) {
     LaunchedEffect(state, window) {
         state.window = window
     }
}

[rob42]

Thank you! That approach makes sense, though I don't really like passing a window reference up to its parent. Feels counter to the design of the Window composable, where things for the parent to use are passed in (e.g. rememberWindowState).

I ended up making a minimal BringToFrontRequester which can be passed to the window, which then binds to it. Much like a FocusRequester.

[Alexander Maryanovsky]

Something like that, yes. I have a WindowManager object responsible for all the windows in the app.

[Alexander Maryanovsky]

You can still pass the state object to Window; you just need to add a window property to it.

[rob42]

You're right, I suppose "communicating up" already happens with the WindowState, e.g. setting the size/position. So it wouldn't be an anti-pattern to populate a nullable on the state