Focus stealing sucks. Yeah, like it’s something new. Free Software advocates have been praising something like this for ages, especially the sloppy-focus camp. Nevertheless, Jeff Atwood considers it important enough to write about, and, frankly, I must admit he’s right doing so, since maybe someone from his large audience will hear him and make Windows™ a better place someday. But the problems he describes are just symptoms for much bigger trouble you get into. And, sadly, these problems creep into other OS’ as well — the difference is that in most cases we can stop it, since these other OS’ are, well, free as in freedom.
(the idea is not new and not mine either, I just can’t find an appropriate link right now)
The main problem is that the OS is in charge of your work on your computer. No problem with that? Wrong. You are in charge of your work, the OS only has to enable the computer to help you. You are the one who is working, you are the one who decides what’s to be done and what not. Or so it should be. We are living in times when it’s perfectly acceptable not to know anything about your system so that all OS developers are trying to assume a total “dummy” is trying to do something with the computer and thus it just HAS to interfere and be “helpful”. Have you ever experienced a stove telling you something like “It seems you’re trying to boil some eggs, it might be better to grill them so I’ve turned on appropriate circuits”? This is however something we are experiencing with computers and particularly with Microsoft OS’. We are getting thousands of nag-screens, like “Would you like to register right now?”, “Updates are available, install now?” or “It seems you are writing a suicide note, need help with that or should I just call an ambulance?” It seems it is not enough for Microsoft.
That one particular dialog Jeff is talking about has been nagging me for ages, even when I’m logged in remotely onto a server 700 km away and editing some stuff in a configuration file, it still steals the focus and asks me (translated from UI-speech into human): “You’ve told me you’d reboot later, maybe now?” It’s just rude. My computer is forgetting who’s in charge. I am. I decide when my computer is to be rebooted, I consider staying unpatched for five more minutes (or days for that matter, it shouldn’t bother my computer), I decide when this “later” is. Don’t bug me.
Don’t bug me. Don’t treat me like an idiot. I’m not. This is why rm -rf / (Disclaimer: do not try this at home, it will damage your Unix system. You will be responsible — that’s kind of my point ;-)) starts working without any reminder — if I said so, I might actually know what I am doing. If I do not — well, that’s the reason we have driving licenses for the cars (I actually liked the idea of European Computer Driving License until I’ve seen the examination papers). The only difference is that computers won’t kill. Yet. That’s the reason users should read manuals or have some training. They are responsible for doing their job and doing it right.
Too bad we’re living in the wrong world for this.
It’s not like OS can’t help me do my work right. It should assist me, that was the whole point of pseudo-intelligent electronics. But it should respect me and consider that my current task is by definition more important than anything else. Even if it’s a warning about surging power in my laptop or an earthquake coming in about 30 seconds, it should notify me about this without interrupting my flow. Make it blink in the taskbar for that matter. Make it send me a mail if it’s less important. But do not jump into my face, telling me “Internet Explorer 7 JavaScript minor security update is available, download?” Even if I know what all these words mean, I don’t care at the moment. If I did, I’d probably have that patch already. It’s easy, right? It is really about assuming some kind of intelligence in the user. Hint him decently at the possibilities, he’ll be thankful. By the way, this is what Windows XP does with these notification bubbles, it works better than any dialog.
Back to this particular problem: focus stealing is nasty, no problem with that so far. But a particular application developer shouldn’t care about stealing or not stealing focus. This is treating symptoms instead of the illness. Windows just doesn’t have a decent window manager, like any decent Unix system has. What could be easier than putting all new windows in the background by default? Alas, Windows doesn’t do that. It’s just selecting some “sane” defaults. “Sane” as in “enough for beginners” and as in “what they don’t know, they won’t miss”. Poor souls like myself, who are stuck with better windowing at home and Windows at work, are screwed.