I'm not submitting this as a bug yet because I'm not sure if it's a XMonad or an Emacs problem. Here's the code, to be run on a checkout from the Emacs trunk: #+begin_src: emacs-lisp (defun make-special-frame () (let* ((width 200) (height 500) (ff (make-frame `((visibility . nil) (width . 20))))) (x-change-window-property "_NET_WM_STRUT_PARTIAL" `(,width 0 0 0 0 ,height 0 0 0 0 0 0) ff "CARDINAL" 32 t) (x-change-window-property "_NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE" '("_NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE_DOCK") ff "ATOM" 32 t) (make-frame-visible ff))) (make-special-frame) #+end_src The above creates, for me, a new Emacs frame that behaves like a strut (panel, dock, I'm not sure of the exact terminology). It's unmoveable and pinned to a window edge. So far so good. But XMonad doesn't give it the keyboard focus; I can only use the mouse in that frame. That's a problem since Emacs is mostly keyboard-driven, so it's hard to do much in that frame. The above works in Metacity and awesome. Is it a XMonad bug? Thanks Ted