December 23, 2003
@ 08:24 PM
Comments [2]
Modal Dialogs, Applications That Steal Focus and Other Pet Peeves

Shannon J Hager writes

Jeff Key wants to end default buttons on Focus-Stealing Dialogs but I think the problem is bigger than that. I don't think ANYTHING should be able to steal my focus while typing. I have ranted about this before both in places where it could help (emails with MS employees) and in places where it can't (certain blogs). Not only is it annoying to suddenly find myself typing in a IM conversation with someone on AOL when less than half a word ago I was typing an invoice for a client, it is DANGEROUS for programs to be able to steal focus like this

I agree, I didn't realize how much applications that steal focus irritate me until I used a friend's iBook which runs Mac OS X where instead of having applications steal your focus has them try to get your attention by hopping around at the bottom of the screen. I thought it was cute and a lot less intrusive than finding myself typing in a differentwWindow because some application decided that it was so important that it was going to interrupt whatever I was doing.

An operating system that enforces application politness, sweet.


 

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Wednesday, 24 December 2003 11:09:19 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Windows 98, Me, 2000 and XP are all _supposed_ to do this - but it only works properly on a per-process level, not a per-frame level. Applications that show multiple frames, such as Internet Explorer and Explorer, can and do swap foreground windows when they shouldn't.
Mike Dimmick
Wednesday, 31 December 2003 20:47:57 (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
I think the XP version might actually infuriate me more, since it seems to be so inconsistent. When I first heard that it wouldn't take focus from the user, I was thinking "About time!" But the problem is, it only does it sometimes (even across processes!), and I cannot determine the conditions why, so it's a crapshoot. It isn't so bad on my home P4, but at work, where I run a 512MB PIII that lags for several seconds on some activities, I damn near blow up when I'm working on something for several seconds only to have focus get lost. Another pet peeve: random taskbar button highlighting (that is ORANGE, no less). I can work on something, but then I see my IE button start flashing, so I check it out, only to be baffled as to what caused the flash.
Keith Patrick
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