From 6fbb145d7d139f215e6edb597e9898b01a5f10c8 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: midisaur <midisaur@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2026 13:32:52 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] tiling WM: disable cursor warp and document focus mitigations

---
 notes/ABLETON-TILING-WM-FOCUS.md | 55 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 scripts/setup-prefix.sh          |  9 ++++++
 2 files changed, 64 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 notes/ABLETON-TILING-WM-FOCUS.md

diff --git a/notes/ABLETON-TILING-WM-FOCUS.md b/notes/ABLETON-TILING-WM-FOCUS.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..a96d39cb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/notes/ABLETON-TILING-WM-FOCUS.md
@@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
+# Tiling WM / tiled layout — focus and cursor behaviour
+
+## Background
+
+Ableton Live's `SetCursorPos` calls (used during automation editing, clip
+nudging, and other UI gestures) are harmless on conventional desktop
+environments. On **tiling compositors** (Hyprland, i3, sway, river, dwm, etc.)
+they manifest as an apparent focus-steal: the cursor jumps to the centre of
+Live's window, the compositor tracks the activation event that triggered the
+warp, and the user is yanked back to Live's workspace when they were trying to
+switch away.
+
+## Registry fix — `MouseWarpOverride = disable`
+
+Applied at prefix setup (see `setup-prefix.sh` step 5/6):
+
+```
+wine reg add 'HKCU\Software\Wine\X11 Driver' \
+  /v MouseWarpOverride /t REG_SZ /d disable /f
+```
+
+This tells Wine to ignore `SetCursorPos` calls from the application. Live
+never depends on absolute cursor position for critical functionality, so the
+override is safe.
+
+## Compositor-side: `focus_on_activate = false`
+
+On top of the Wine-level warp disable, users of **Wayland compositors** that
+respect the `focus_on_activate` property (Hyprland, niri, river) may further
+benefit from setting:
+
+```ini
+# Hyprland (hyprland.lua):
+hl.config({
+    misc = {
+        focus_on_activate = false,
+    },
+})
+```
+
+This prevents the compositor from switching focus (and workspaces) when Live
+fires an X11 activation event during background processing (audio rendering,
+Link sync, plugin scans). Without it, the activation can pull the user from
+their current workspace back to Live even when the mouse warp is disabled.
+
+## Impact
+
+- **GNOME / KDE / standard DEs**: no change — `MouseWarpOverride` has no
+  observable effect in these environments.
+- **Tiling WMs / Wayland compositors**: eliminates the "cursor grabbed at
+  window edge", "workspace switch broken", and "forced focus to Live"
+  symptoms entirely.
+
+Tested on Hyprland 0.55.4 (PikaOS 4 / Debian trixie) with Ableton Live 12
+Suite running under the project's patched Wine stack.
diff --git a/scripts/setup-prefix.sh b/scripts/setup-prefix.sh
index e07b19f5..7d9e886e 100755
--- a/scripts/setup-prefix.sh
+++ b/scripts/setup-prefix.sh
@@ -1160,6 +1160,15 @@ elif [ -L "$pipeasio_cfg" ] && [ ! -e "$pipeasio_cfg" ]; then
 fi
 
 echo "== [5/6] set portal policy and scope the Push USB bridge to its helpers =="
+# Ableton calls SetCursorPos to reposition the cursor during automation editing,
+# clip nudging, and various UI interactions. On most window managers this is fine.
+# On tiling compositors (Hyprland, i3, sway, river, etc.) it forces the cursor
+# to the center of Live's window, which breaks workspace switching and steals
+# focus from where you're working. Disabling the warp is safe because Live does
+# not depend on absolute cursor position for any critical function.
+wine reg add 'HKCU\Software\Wine\X11 Driver' \
+  /v MouseWarpOverride /t REG_SZ /d disable /f
+
 # Default only: a policy the user set with set-file-portal-policy survives re-runs.
 if ! wine reg query 'HKCU\Software\Wine\X11 Driver' /v FileDialogPortal >/dev/null 2>&1; then
   wine reg add 'HKCU\Software\Wine\X11 Driver' \