Is There a Solution for Focus-Hungry Apps? 131
V.Toulias asks: "Over the past few years, I have seen a rise in the percentage of applications installed in my Windows box that do not ask nicely for my attention but force themselves into view when they think they have something important to tell me. Mail clients that pop-up into view when a new email is sent or received, instant messengers that pop up when a new message arrives, browser pop-ups that... pop-up even though the page is loading in a 'background window', informational OS messages, It-seems-that-you're-writing-a-letter app helpers, security warnings and the list goes on. It doesn't take a science study to realize the adverse effects that this phenomenon is causing on your productivity and concentration. So, apart from the obvious suggestion of switching OS, is there any other solution to this disturbing trend?"
SetFocus(), oh how I hate thee. (Score:4, Insightful)
The second thing I'd like to do is disable those stupid XP security warnings the poster talks about.
So far, I haven't been able to find a way to do either.
two monitors (Score:5, Insightful)
I assume you're talking about Windows. This happens on the Mac to some extent, usually when launching apps - eg when I launch Mail then switch back to the app I was using, of course, new windows in Mail throw themselves on the top. This was not a problem in classic Mac OS which enforced application level window layers, which - to be perfectly honest - I prefer for this very reason.
But I've found two monitors do the trick.
Re:The Options Menu (Score:2, Insightful)
Last time I had an update it popped up with the default action set to Update.
It grabbed the focus whilst I was typing a comment like this and upgraded without my explicit consent.
I was VERY annoyed with that action.
The browser should be able to check for updates on startup only (I want the updates and to be told about them, just not in the middle of a session)
Re:two monitors (Score:1, Insightful)
And this is a pity because it was not happening on NeXTstep. An application that finished launching was automatically put into focus UNLESS the user set the focus to any other app during the launch time (because I think Dock.app was getting the focus during hte launch).
App stealing focus is one of the most irritating thing ever. Web pages too (Load page, start typing in a field, then oooops, it moves to another, or just select the whole field)
It's more than just an annoyance (Score:5, Insightful)
One could write an app which monitors keystrokes and tracks focus, which calculates focus independently of the window manager, and detects any discrepancies, and corrects them as soon as possible, but it will still leak events sometimes, inevitably, unless it acts as a translation filter and checks at every event for correct focus.
Symptom of a larger problem (Score:5, Insightful)