Re: _NET_WM_[GET_|TAKE_|REQUEST_]FOCUS & urgency

[Elijah Newren <newren gmail com>]

On 5/26/05, Bill Haneman <Bill Haneman sun com> wrote:

> As I see it, focus-stealing is the primary thing to avoid here.  Having
> a new window pop up in front of what I'm doing is an annoyance, but then
> again all interruptions are annoyances, even when they are
> useful/informative.[1]    I might not notice a taskbar flash (might be
> looking away at the time), but I will certainly notice if an unfocussed
> window is raised to the top.
> 
> So personally I think raise-new/raise-on-urgency-hint are sensible
> behaviors, and are a reasonable policy choice to offer the user. [2]

This may be reasonable policy choices for some WMs to choose, but I'm
unconvinced that it's optimal behavior for all WMs--and in fact, I'm
unconvinced that it's correct behavior from a usability point of view
for "mainstream" WMs.  (Reasons: (1) Users should be able to ignore
apps that are urgent or demanding attention if they so choose and
continue working on what they are doing; I do that often.  Raising the
window so that it occludes what the user was doing harms
this--especially raising a window every time it thinks it becomes
Urgent.  (2) Having your keystrokes go to a window you can't see is
confusing for the user.)  Because of this, there's no way this is
going to be required in the spec.  Therefore, it's something that
needs to be sent as a bug report/feature request to the individual
WMs.

> [1] - I don't take the phone off the hook when I am working, but it does
> interrupt me when it rings...

Yes, but it isn't loud enough to prevent you from hearing other
things, nor does it stop you from seeing what you are attempting to
interact with.  In other words, we need DEMANDS_ATTENTION to be like
your phone.  ;-)

Cheers,
Elijah