Sloppy Focus — KTextEditor Plugin for Kate

A KTextEditor plugin that brings focus-follows-mouse (sloppy focus) behavior to Kate's split views, tool views, terminals, and other panes. Hover over a pane to give it keyboard focus, just like sloppy focus in X11 window managers.

Features

• Focus follows mouse across all Kate panes: editor splits, tool views, terminals, file browsers, etc.
• Configurable focus delay (0–5000 ms)
• Minimum stay time to prevent rapid focus bouncing
• Optional raise-on-focus
• Focus-stealing prevention:
  • Ignores focus changes while modal dialogs are active
  • Ignores focus changes when floating widgets (completion popups, tooltips) have focus
• Verifies mouse is still over the target pane before switching
• Full configuration page in Kate's settings (Settings → Configure Kate → Sloppy Focus)

Requirements

• CMake ≥ 3.16
• Extra CMake Modules (ECM) ≥ 5.80
• Qt 6 + KDE Frameworks 6 (KF6), or Qt 5 + KDE Frameworks 5 (KF5)
• KTextEditor development headers

On Debian/Ubuntu (KF6):

sudo apt install cmake extra-cmake-modules libkf6texteditor-dev qt6-base-dev

On Arch Linux (KF6):

sudo pacman -S cmake extra-cmake-modules ktexteditor qt6-base

Building

make

This creates a build/ directory, runs CMake, and builds the plugin. The build system auto-detects KF6 or falls back to KF5.

Installing

make install

This installs the plugin library to the appropriate KTextEditor plugin directory (typically /usr/lib/qt6/plugins/kf6/ktexteditor/ for KF6).

After installing, restart Kate and enable the plugin in Settings → Configure Kate → Plugins → Sloppy Focus.

Configuration

All settings are accessible via Settings → Configure Kate → Sloppy Focus:

Setting	Default	Description
Focus delay	150 ms	Time the mouse must hover before focus switches
Minimum stay time	50 ms	Minimum time before another switch is allowed
Raise on focus	Off	Raise the view widget when it receives focus
Ignore dialogs	On	Disable sloppy focus while a modal dialog is active
Ignore floating widgets	On	Disable sloppy focus when popups/tooltips have focus

License

See the source files for license information.