Is there a Renoise-specific way to take over the keyboard input when the focus is inside the Vst window? Would be nice for playing synthesizer sounds so I don’t have to change focus all the time.
I don’t know what you mean exactly; you can’t play the vsti while you have its window open? Then you have probably checked the ‘enable keyboard’ option in the bottom left corner of the vsti window. Uncheck it to resolve the problem.
You using Mac OS X or Windows Instant?
I have the same problem as you describe, but this is Mac OS X issue for me. Never happened back in the ancient windows times 
Sorry, I don’t have a fix for you tho. If it’s Mac OS X related, maybe it should be reported as a bug
Neither 
I already wrote to the maintainer of the Vst and he told me that the host, i.e. Renoise, usually handles this type of thing (key presses).
@jonas: Vsti? Wait, what? And there’s no such thing as an “enable keyboard” thing. Maybe I wasn’t precise: Renoise focused: pressing [y] plays the note C4 of the present instrument. Vst window opened: nothing happens when pressing [y] (just an example). I know in windows, having a window opened/in front is the same as that window having focus, but on Linux I can have a window in the front while another window has the focus, i.e. takes the keypresses. Just stinks to have to [Alt]+[Tab] just to play a sound, then change back again to finetune some more
Look very carefully in the lower left corner of the window screenshot below…
And yes, in Linux focus behaves differently, which is the problem of the specific OS.
It seems to be configurable depending on which WM you are using, but that is just a matter of taste and how much you are attached to it above usability.
You can always attach a master MIDI keyboard controller to play sounds… then your problem is solved.
Yes, I’ll do that I suppose. There isn’t however any option to enable keyboard input in my Vst windows. Maybe it’s not standard with every Vst, or it’s just a Windows/MacOS featuer. Dunno. Anyway, thanks for the help.
i’m also experiencing problems with focus being lost (os x)
it happens all the time but i can’t really give steps for people to replicate it.
what happens a lot is that i start fiddling around with the knobs and faders of a vsti (reaktor in this case) and sometimes the renoise transport bar doesn’t work as expected anymore. ie when i hit spacebar nothing happens and first i have to put focus back to renoise
I have the same problem here…
yep this is definitely an issue in renoise 2.1
i don’t actually think or remember this happening in older versions.
and it is not connected, as far as i can tell, to the “enable keyboard” toggle.
attaching a midi keyboard solves the problem of not being able to play notes but not the problem of the transport bar.
Unfortunately this way of stealing the “focus” is not part of the VST standard. Renoise seems to be the only keyboard centric host out there. We havent found a way so far to get this reliably done for all VSTs.
This should only be a problem on OSX though. There, some VSTs will steal the keyboard focus from Renoise, although they should not. This depends on where you click in the VST, and happens with many “big” & complex VST GUIs…
thanks for the reply taktik.
Was it also already an issue in previous renoise versions?
i seem to remember it wasn’t, but not sure.
If not, why is it in this version? What changed?