I have noticed in FrameMaker 3.1X on both the SGI and SUN platforms
that certain dialogs, such as "Column Layout..." for example, respond
to keyboard traversal even though the pointer is NOT in the dialog
window and even though the window manager keyboard focus policy is
POINTER.

How is this done?

I would like to emulate this behavior in my application. It seems a
reasonable behavior since when a dialog is popped up from a keyboard
action, the dialog is not guaranteed to be under the pointer and the
user should not have to reach for the mouse just to move the focus.

Alternatively, I'm open to any suggestions as to what is the "right"
way to insure that popups get the focus when they appear, particularly
when they are invoked from the keyboard and one's keyboard focus
policy is pointer.