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List:       kde-look
Subject:    RE: Window focus and interruption.
From:       "Craig Oshima" <coshima () redshift ! com>
Date:       2001-07-25 7:31:57
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> person
> shooter with mouse look), but others wouldn't (kless, hehehe).  And
what
> about a dvd player?  It should keep the focus even if the user has
been
> sitting on his thumbs for the past hour, so long as the movie is
currently
> playing.  Because the meaning of activity is different for each
> application,
> it should be up to the application to signal when the user is actively
> using
> it and thus would not like to be disturbed.

I think *in general*, no process should be able to barge into the
foreground. This kind of intrusiveness means that the user is not in
control (one of the guiding principles of UI design).  Instead, the user
is at the whim and mercy of the system.

Leaving aside notifications of dire significance (and 99% of most
notifications are NOT), and certain unique exceptions (perhaps, for
example, user-specified appointment reminders that they *want* to be
interrupted by), the foreground application should NEVER be interrupted.

During startup, I would say that the first process in the foreground
stays in the foreground, while others must open in the background.
Ideally, a session being restored should launch the previous session's
foreground process first, so the user can start working again quickly
(and peacefully, because all other processes launch quietly in the
background, and remain there until brought forward by the user).

--
Craig Oshima
coshima@acm.org 

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