While I am working in one application I am often bothered by other applications stealing focus. For example: I'm typing in a text editor, while importing some new CDs with iTunes. I'm happily typing away, I insert a CD to be imported by iTunes in the background, then after a few seconds iTunes steals focus, causing me to loose what I was typing into thin air and to loose my train of thought. It's not just iTunes, many applications steal focus and it is really very annoying, sometimes worse.
Does anyone know of a way to completely disable the ability for applications to steal focus ?
Applications stealing focus is a huge problem for me and very disruptive to my work.
I use Spaces to eliminate on-screen clutter: one space for Illustrator, one for PhotoShop and so on.
For example, I'll drag dozens of PS files to Distiller then switch back to InDesign to continue working. Every frigging time Distiller starts the next task it pulls me away from InDesign back to the Distiller space.
The same issue exists with Safari.
I'll open five tabs in one window: one for company email, one for the web-based project management tool, one for the client file site and so on. As I'm typing my username and password to log on to the email, Safari will suddenly switch tabs when the client site loads and I find myself typing in the wrong window.
Whatever the user is doing should be given the most importance. It's insane that the OS can interrupt me when I'm in the middle of typing and place me in another application.
What the **** were the designers thinking? There needs to be a way to turn this off.
Yeh my problem isn't to do with Spaces (I'm still on Tiger), but it's the nearest description so far to my problem in that it involves focus theft. I guess that's really confusing isn't it ?
I'm having the same problem too. Here's what happens to me. If Mail is open (I have it set to full screen) and I decide to ope firefox by clicking the dock icon or any program for that matter, the other program opens BEHIND mail instead of in front of mail. I thought choosing a program made the new program the new focus on screen.
Russet, I completely understand your frustration and I don't think there's a quick fix. In my opinion apps stealing focus is rude, very un-Apple and very Windows-esque.
Poorly written Web pages do this but that only affects Web browsing. Apps stealing focus is something Apple can, and should, control.
The best you could hope for is to send Apple some
feedback regarding this practice. Good luck.
Yup, this *****. I'm using Max to rip my CD collection, because it supports FLAC and a couple of other lossless codecs. I turned off auto-ripping in iTunes, but if the application is open, it still insists on stealing focus whenever an audio disk is inserted.
This should really be an OS-level preference with a white list. I hope Apple pays attention to these discussion forums.
Well guys, I've calmed down 🙂 I also upgraded to Leopard and the problem is still there. I found a new way to make it happen, in which iTunes is also the culprit:
I was watching something on youtube when I found this one. I only plugged my iPod in to charge it, I didn't want to deal with iTunes at that moment. Really silly feature.
I really think Apple should add some settings in the "System Preferences" to customize the way applications are authorized to "take" focus. I am not just talking about a global setting that prevents users from using Apple-TAB shorcut and from switching space when clicking on an application dock icon. I am talking about some rules that could be customized for each application (like for spaces preferences in Leopard).
Please Apple do it for us 😉 BTW I have never seen this functionnality under Unix/Linux (though it has been years that I am using multi-desktop features under various Unixes and Linuxes.
I wouldn't be a bad idea either to create a concept of "application group" allowing to set this kind of preferences (for spaces and focus behaviors) to a group of application. I have 21 applications in the spaces preferences and I am pretty sure that some users have a lot more.
Wow, when I found this thread I thought for sure that there would be an answer and my problem would be solved. It's such an annoying issue, I figured how could it
not be solved?
Ugh.
Applications stealing focus is a huge productivity waster. For example, Adobe Illustrator (all recent incarnations) - if I open 10 files, it takes a while. No problem - while it's loading those files, I'll just go do something else. Except I can't - because every time another file is successfully loaded (after an absurdly long pause), Illustrator steals focus and yoinks itself back to the foreground. So anything else I attempt to do is immediately interrupted and I'm forced to sit there with my finger in my nose watching illustrator open documents because it refuses to leave focus alone.
This is indeed a frustration. Unfortunately I've never been able to find a solution either.
Have you tried hiding iTunes (Cmd-H) rather than just sending it to the background? Would this suppress the program from popping to the foreground? (Just a guess here; haven't tried it.)
I often work in MS Word, but need to create a spreadsheet, so I launch Excel. Because Excel is a brutally slow program to launch, I switch back to Word and keep typing, rather than sit idly for 2 minutes while waiting for Excel.
Sooo...I'll by typing away and suddenly Excel will push to the front with only its splashscreen. This is useless since it will still be a minute or so before Excel is usable. So I click back into Word. Excel will then push into the front again while its floating toolbar loads. I know that this STILL doesn't mean Excel is ready to use, so I switch back to Word again and try to do some more work while the Excel pig continues to labour away in its startup process. Excel will eventually push to the front again with a dialog saying that the worksheet is loading. Sometimes this can take a while too and then Excel will finally jump to the front when the worksheet window is available to work in.
In short, it is too slow to just wait for, so I try to work in another program while it launches. But it interrupts me no fewer than 3 times, and often 4. It is incredibly frustrating.
I read somewhere that holding the Esc key while launching a program will make it stay in the background while loading, but this has not worked for me. I know that you can launch in the background from Terminal, but that is far too clunky.
In any case, this would not be helpful in your example, because you're talking about a program that is already running and stealing focus for another reason.
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(And Russet, for the record I also understand your frustration at people getting snarky with you when you point put that their responses are not relevant to your actual question, as if it's your fault they didn't comprehend your real question (which was perfectly well articulated by the way)!)
Yep, this problem is annoying as ****. I've done as suggested by BDAqua and completed the form to send Apple a full description of the problem and why it *****. I guess the more people who do that, the better.
