Re: Balsa brings itself to the front on new mail?

[Peter Bloomfield <peterbloomfield bellsouth net>]

Hi Mike:

Welcome to the list!

On Mar  2, 2010, at  3:00 PM, Michael Glover wrote:
> Hi all-
>
> New to the list, but didn't see this issue addressed in the archive.
>
> I have balsa set to check for new mail on my IMAP mailboxes  
> automatically.  This works great.  Unfortunately, whenever I get new  
> mail, balsa makes itself the topmost window, changing my workspace if  
> necessary.  This is really annoying and interrupts my workflow, and has  
> happened twice already while I composed this message.
>
> Is there a way to disable this behavior?  I can't find anything in the  
> GUI, and none of the options in .balsa/config look appropriate.  If I  
> have to patch the code and recompile balsa, I'm okay with that -- in  
> that case, where should I look, and what would you like the  
> configuration option called?

Curious--I don't see that behavior.  I would guess that it's caused by a  
call to gtk_window_set_urgency_hint in src/main-window.c, which sets a  
"hint asking the desktop environment to draw the user's attention to the  
window".  In my setup (F12 with metacity as window manager), that makes  
the bottom panel button for Balsa a pulsating blue color and puts it on  
all workspaces, but doesn't raise Balsa's window.  If you don't mind  
recompiling, perhaps you could cut out that call and check whether it  
cures the offending behavior.

Balsa doesn't set the hint if its window is "active" when the new mail  
arrives, which seems to mean that it has the keyboard focus.  So if you're  
already reading mail, nothing happens.  But if you're *composing* mail,  
focus is in the compose window, and the hint gets set.

You note correctly that it's not currently configurable.  The logical  
place for an option would be on the "Incoming" page of the preferences  
dialog:

When mail arrives:  [x] Display message  [x] Play sound  [x] Show icon

You could add something like "[x] Set urgency hint"--that's a bit obscure,  
but we don't really know how a window manager will react to having the  
hint set, so I'm not sure we can be any more specific.

There's a side issue: the preferences dialog is already of a size that  
challenges a small display; adding the new option to the end of the  
current line would make it unacceptably wide, and creating a new line  
(perhaps putting the four options in a 2x2 table) could make it too high.   
Of course, we don't really need four separate options--do we?

Display message: pops up a bubble.
Play sound:
Show icon: shows the system tray icon.
Set urgency hint:

Could/should we group them somehow into fewer master options?

Regards,

Peter

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