Two semi-whiny mac questions for the Group Mind

[substitute]

1) Is there any way to keep applications from egregiously stealing focus, sometimes in damaging and annoying ways? It's bad enough that some noncritical program can just barge in and hide your work and demand a click, but sometimes it also steals your keyboard input immediately or even worse steals the foreground but doesn't give you mouse or

Comments

[jpeace]

1) No, it's crazy fucking annoying and one of the big reasons I left Windows in the first place. Now watching a movie is like:

VLC: OMG CAN'T DECODE DIS HERE FRAME OF COCKTHIRSTY_ARGENTINES(Fullrip-iso960).divx ABORT RETRY UNIX
iTunes: ARE YOU SURE YOU DON'T WANT TO UPGRADE TO 7.5.4.3??? IT'S SOOOO MUCH BETTER. ALSO I GOT BORED AND DELETED YOUR MOVIES AND PLAYCOUNTS.
Cyberduck: HAY I CRASHED. CAN I HAVE SOME MONEY?
Time Machine: WHERE'D THAT DRIVE GO? IT'S BEEN TREN DAYZ :(
Bluetooth: UM REMEMBER YOUR KEYBOARD? I DON'T
Adium: SOME FAG SAID SOMETHING. IMA BOUNCE NOW
Keynote: LALALA WHAT'S THAT FONT WITH THE LITTLE DINGYS ON THE T'S AGAIN? I CAN'T FIND IT AND I'M GONNA USE MARKER FELT IF YOU DON'T HELP
Word: INDEXING FONTS. YOU NEED SOMETHING TO DRINK? I SHUR DO LOL
Finder: I JUST LOST CONTACT WITH THAT SERVER FROM 2004. WANT TO RECONNECT?
Print Services: PAPPPPPPPPERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

[jpeace]

You're being familiar, but I don't know who you are, but what I'm reading of yours is informi-taining so I'm adding you. Hello.

[substitute]

I went to high school with him. Neither of us has recovered.

[brianenigma]

What's even worse is when they steal focus in another Spaces workspace. Fwoosh! Now you're on another screen and I demand your attention!

With the exception of iTunes popup dialogs, I think I've managed to make most everything not interrupt and/or go through Growl. There's a certain sort of OCD ADD that goes with email and RSS programs that notify you that there are THREE NEW ITEMS!!! (even if it's a number badge in the icon) since the last time I checked, TWO MINUTES AGO. Even if I'm in the middle of something important, I'll click over just to make the counter go away. Along similar lines, I've shut off a lot of little ADD-like-notifiers on my system. Only a few important things try to get my attention, and they're configured to not bounce or popup or anything, just go through Growl please.

[gcrumb]

1) Re-program all your favourite foreground apps to run in modal dialog boxes.

Okay, seriously: It's a huge pain in every GUI I've used. Hot keys make it worse when typing a letter accidentally provides the intruder with unintended input. It would be nice to see a Desktop Environment with an arbitration layer for cases like this. Some of the most common mistakes could be avoided simply by making modal dialogs apply their modality (heh) only in the context of the app. But that breaks when system-level dialogs are invoked to open files, etc.

No good answers to this one, I fear.

[rpkrajewski]

I wish I knew how to fix the focus thing. Mac OS Classic did this better…