Pops up & Steals Focus

gurple · Post by **gurple** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 5:14 pm

I've encountered a design oversight/decision with Adium that I consider needs addressing. Its presence has created much annoyance and frustration for me.

I saw in a previous post that someone was seeking an event logging addition Adium. This is something that would record auth requests and the like. Having something like that in Adium would sooth a symptom of my concern. However, for me the issue is windows and dialogs popping up and stealing the focus.

Imagine this scenario: I'm busily typing away to a contact when all of a sudden, pow!, a mail notification alert pops up and interrupts my typing and conversation. It's not as though responding to the presence of new mail staves off an impending nuclear holocaust.

Worse yet is I'm busily typing away to a contact when all of a sudden, pow!, an auth request comes in, steals the window focus, and in that instant I find myself typing into the auth request which somehow causes it to be dismissed in an instant flash of light on my screen. Who did I just deny or ignore? Crap! Now that's infuriating! Moreover, it happens, oh, so often.

Can we get this looked into?

Thanks guys,
gurple

twopeak · Post by **twopeak** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 5:24 pm

I have my new mail notification set to a growl alert, and nothing more.
This way I can keep typing away.

To do this: open the preferences (cmd-,) open the "events" tab. Find and expand the line that says "New mail notification" and change it to something of your choice.

You can also turn this off alltogether in the account options.

Post by **bgannin** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 5:28 pm

Pow! Growl alerts are the simple and easy solution to all your problems.

gurple · Post by **gurple** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 5:32 pm

<sigh> Installing Growl is not something I see as a solution but only a hack to get around a design flaw.

Post by **bgannin** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 5:40 pm

And you are entitled to your opinion.

Apple does not provide an alert system that does not 'steal' focus, and implementing a custom system to do so is already done by a talented team on a great project - Growl.

If you see it as a hack, fine... but of your two options, it's pretty clear which addresses your needs.

gurple · Post by **gurple** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 5:48 pm

And what is the solution to the auth requests, my real concern?

Post by **bgannin** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 5:58 pm

gurple wrote:And what is the solution to the auth requests, my real concern?

You stated that the alert interrupting your typing flow was the problem, thus the answer to that has been discussed.

Authorization has been a topic discussed in several threads and likely has several requests on Trac about it already. If not, feel free to submit a ticket.

Post by **Crypt** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 6:44 pm

@bgannin: i can see how you would think growl would be a possible fix but the problem would stil persist. i agree with gurple. i wouldn't say make it and option so you are adding more to the preferences as is but rather always keep it in the background

Post by **bgannin** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 7:29 pm

@Crypt:

As I read it - "an authorization alert keeps popping up when I'm typing, screwing up what I'm typing. How can I fix this?"

As I answered - "with Growl."

As to how it's a solution - it will display it instead as a non-modal alert that doesn't steal keyboard focus. This allows you to respond to the message on your time if you set the Growl notification to be sticky.

As to "sending it to the background" - not possible. An application modal alert by design (this means Apple's) needs your attention and does it's best to do so. And I'd be inclined to believe (don't have the source in front of me at the moment) this is run as an NSAlert.

This breaks down into 2 issues as I see it:
1. focus 'stolen' by alert (for authorization)
2. alerts for authorization popping up [and better control/handling therein]

Thus my comment.

Post by **Crypt** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 9:49 pm

this might sound stupid but do all three NSAlert styles cause the notification to appear on top of all other windows like the user in this case?