#1055·glazewm

Floating windows all come to front together when activating one, instead of only the selected window

Author: DavidRaveloUCreated May 13, 2025Updated Sep 8, 2026
Labelstype: feature

Describe the problem/motivation

When multiple windows are in floating mode alongside tiled layout windows, activating a single floating window (via Alt+Tab or the Windows taskbar) brings all visible floating windows to the front, pushing tiled windows to the back. This behavior differs from native Windows window management, where only the selected window is brought forward.

This forces users to manually minimize all other floating windows to avoid bringing them all to the front, which is tedious and disrupts workflow, especially when many floating windows are open.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/7221a7c8-11ae-41cf-a7f2-99997428e1db

Video description:

In the recorded video, I have four open windows: Firefox, Chrome, Notepad++, and File Explorer.

Firefox and Chrome are managed within the tiling layout.

Notepad++ and File Explorer are floating windows behind the layout, and importantly, they are not minimized.

Notepad++ is positioned at the very bottom layer and has a larger window size than File Explorer, to clearly show that all floating windows are brought to front when only one is activated.

The initial window stacking order from bottom to top is:

* Notepad++ (bottom)

* File Explorer

* Chrome and Firefox (in the layout, at the top)

In the video, I start focused on the layout windows (Firefox and Chrome), with the floating windows visible behind, partially seen thanks to the layout gaps.

Then, I press Alt+Tab to switch focus to File Explorer. However, instead of only File Explorer coming to the front, both File Explorer and Notepad++ are brought forward, with Notepad++ visible behind File Explorer because of its larger size.

The new stacking order after activation is:

* Layout windows (Chrome and Firefox) at the back

* Notepad++

* File Explorer (front)

The expected behavior is that when activating File Explorer, only that window should come in front of the layout, without bringing all floating windows forward.

Describe the solution you'd like

Implement a more granular focus and stacking behavior for floating windows so that activating a single floating window only brings that window to the front, regardless of the visibility state of other floating windows. This would eliminate the need to minimize other floating windows manually and improve usability, aligning GlazeWM's behavior more closely with native Windows window management.

Alternatives considered

No response