Is There a Solution for Focus-Hungry Apps?

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?"

Re:( what was that ) O o .

[Procyon101]

Best is in mid-password... Here I am clacking away, and hit enter, just in time to notice that no password has been entered, and some window just dissapeared on my enter stroke... what was that, a benevolent warning message or did I just IM some random guy from egypt my password? I'll never know.

Pain in the bottom

[xtieburn]

Focus stealing is a royal pain in the arse. Not only in the O/S but on web pages such as dictionary.com which likes to select the whole word youve half typed in to the box so that as you continue to type you wipe out the first half.

Anyhow a couple of points.

1. TweakUI does _not_ stop focus stealing. It tries to help but there are many apps and messages that slip through.
2. Swapping application is _not_ always viable. Either the alternative will cost a lot of cash or there is no open source equivalent that doesnt have the problem just as bad.

and a couple of opinions.

1. Focus stealing has _no_ purpose accept possibly to stress how utterly arrogant the developer was in thinking that his program is more important than what I am doing.
2. It _is_ an O/S issue. Im not so sure how bad it is with Linux and Mac's but Windows is a pain for it and it can cause serious problems. If your firewall or virus scanner gets an incorrect selection made because it pops up while your typing, thats a serious issue. It is no different to malicious emails and popups which MS try to stamp out. It wouldnt be hard for them to stop focus stealing altogether or even better have an option like in TweakUI only one that actually works fully.

Despite a lot of people being a little on the self superior side about this, as if your an idiot for having the problem. I dont believe there is currently any satisfactory way to stop it. Even if the suggestions ive read did work changing apps, changing O/S, using TweakUI etc etc. Non of it should be necessary. A little tick box should suffice.

(Maybe I have selective memory but I am fairly sure this problem is getting increasingly prevelant. I dont remeber much about Win9x doing it, I remember 2k doing it very infrequently. People really shouldnt have to put up with it at all.)