Sparkles

Appearance

F15 — Popup with grab ​

Context menus are the acid test of a platform's secondary-surface model: positioned relative to a parent, grabbing input, dismissed by clicking outside — which requires events the popup doesn't naturally receive.

Requirements ​

  1. Right-click opens a menu-like popup (solid panel, 3 fake items, hover highlight) at the pointer; clicking an item logs it; clicking outside dismisses; Esc dismisses.
    • Wayland: xdg_popup with an xdg_positioner (anchor rect at the click, gravity bottom-right, constraint_adjustment slide+flip) + xdg_popup.grab with the click serial; handle popup_done.
    • X11: an override-redirect window + XGrabPointer/XGrabKeyboard; outside-click detection via the grab; document the focus model mess (no WM involvement).
    • Win32: a WS_POPUP window + SetCapture (or the TrackPopupMenu-style internal loop — implement the capture variant; note TrackPopupMenu as the system escape hatch and its modal-loop implications for F03).
    • macOS: a borderless NSWindow (NSWindowStyleMaskBorderless) + a local+global event monitor for outside clicks (do this variant; note NSMenu as the escape hatch and what it does for free).
  2. Edge correctness: open the popup near the bottom-right screen/output edge and log the final placement — who repositioned it (compositor via positioner vs app math)?
  3. Nested popup (submenu) one level deep — Wayland requires the parent-popup chain; others re-parent or stack; log the stacking order events.
  4. Log dismissal cause (popup_done, grab-break, capture-loss, monitor event) — the asymmetry of who decides dismissal is the finding.

Instrumentation ​

popup_open anchor=… gravity=…, popup_placed rect=…, popup_dismiss cause=…, grab state=….

Findings to record ​

  • Placement ownership: declarative constraints (Wayland) vs app-computed geometry (others) — what a framework positioner API must express.
  • Grab semantics per platform and what breaks them (focus loss, another popup, screen edge).
  • Whether the popup may exceed output bounds (Wayland: no; others: measured).
  • The escape hatches (NSMenu, TrackPopupMenu) and what using them costs in control.

Verification ​

Wayland: Tier A under headless weston (positioner math + grab handshake visible in the trace; synthetic pointer via weston test input where available). X11: Tier A under Xvfb + xdotool clicks. Win32 A[wine], macOS A[ssh] for open/place/dismiss-by-Esc; real outside-click feel and multi-monitor edges: Tier C.