Re: Balsa 2.4.8 auto-raise and auto-focus

["Mark A. Flacy" <mflacy verizon net>]

On Fri, 2010-12-03 at 05:11 -0800, peterbloomfield wrote:
> Hi Paweł,
> 
> --- On Fri, 12/3/10, Paweł Sałek <pawsa0 gmail com> wrote:
> 
> > From: Paweł Sałek <pawsa0 gmail com>
> > Subject: Re: Balsa 2.4.8 auto-raise and auto-focus
> > To: balsa-list gnome org
> > Date: Friday, December 3, 2010, 1:37 AM
> > On 12/02/2010 04:55:05 PM, Mark A.
> > Flacy wrote:
> > > Greetings,
> > > 
> > > This is driving me insane.  Every time a new
> > e-mail comes in, balsa de-iconifies and grabs the mouse
> > focus which interrupts what I am doing.
> > > 
> > > I'm running FVWM2 as my window manager on top of Gnome
> > and I cannot find any configuration in FVWM2 that would be
> > causing this.  I've turned off all inbound message
> > alert options that I can find in balsa.  I'm ready to
> > dump balsa if I cannot find a fix (I got interrupted while
> > typing this message, for crying out loud.).
> > 
> > Do you use your own balsa build? Balsa does not do it on
> > its own, that is certain. I wonder however whether this is
> > caused by eg. libnotify library...
> 
> Balsa uses gtk_window_set_urgency_hint() to alert the user to new mail,
> and I'm guessing that FVWM2 implements that in the way that Mark
> describes.  The gtk docs are silent about implementation; metacity
> makes the Balsa button in the bottom panel a pulsing blue color and
> puts it on the current workspace, which gets your attention but is
> still relatively inconspicuous. 

OK, that's an important hint.

I *think* that gnome-panel is using gtk_window_set_urgency_hint() to
tell the window manager to activate the window (probably with additional
EWMH state information that fvwm is ignoring).  From the fvwm2 man
page...

        When a compliant taskbar asks fvwm to activate a window
        (typically when you click on a button which represents a window
        in such a
        taskbar), then fvwm calls the complex function
        EWMHActivateWindowFunc which by default is Iconify Off, Focus
        and Raise.

...which is what I'm seeing.  I should be able to tell fvwm to stop
doing that for balsa windows without much effort. (I can re-define that
function in the fvwm configuration files.)

> 
> Because we've never seen such intrusive behavior, setting the hint is
> unconditional, and you can't inhibit it using the user prefs.  In
> hindsight, that was obviously a poor decision!

I don't know. The set of users who run Balsa under Gnome with FVWM2 as
the window manager is probably pretty small.  Since I'm the first to
whine about it, I'd say that set has one element.

Even so, I'll post on the list if changing that function works or not. 

> 
> The prefs currently offer control over "Display message", "Play sound",
> and "Show icon".  I hate to offer a fourth option for setting the
> urgency, and I don't even know what to call it, since what the user
> sees can vary so much.  Perhaps we should just guess that if they're
> all turned off, the user /really/ doesn't want to be disturbed.
> 
> Any thoughts?
> 
> Peter
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-- 
Mark A. Flacy <mflacy verizon net>