Launching other applications from within Ogre

Question

I have a working Ogre C++ application. What I wish to do is to launch other applications from within my application.

For example when I click some button in my application, it should launch some other program. I use the combination of fork and exec system call and it works but with a few problems.

I tried for example doing it with xbmc and it launches this application, but the thing is that the input focus does not automatically go to the xbmc window even when it is running in full screen mode. I need to use Alt+Tab combination to manually give it the focus.

Same thing when I exit from xbmc, I need to manually give back focus to my Ogre application window.

Is it possible to launch such programs in a controlled way from within Ogre application? If yes, how?

(Ubuntu 12.04 with CEGUI, OIS & OGRE)

Answer 1

Focus handling of different windows is not a rendering and hence not an Ogre-related task, but something that needs to be handled on OS level.

So you will have to find some platform-specific commands that allow you to change the focus and call them from within your Ogre application once the new application window is created.