Pidgin stealing app focus on Windows 7

[Punio4]

Hey guys!

I'm a big Pidgin fan, but I have one big problem that has forced me to use Trillian5, which I'm not too happy with.

The behaviur I'm trying to get is that new windows are created minimized, blinking in the taskbar, but not stealing focus.

I've tried various settings, and the closest I could get was the following:

- If no windows are present, a new conversation is created minimized in the taskbar, but it will minimize a running fullscreen game

- If the buddy list is open, a newly created window will bring it to front.

Is there any way of remedying this?

[Phenom II]

Another Steal focus problem, I wish MS would ******** fix this ! Grrr

[Punio4]

I don't think that it's a MS problem, because neither Live Messenger, Skype, Steam, or Trillian exhibit this behaviour.

I think it's something with the cross-platform code, GTK, and whatnot.

[Phenom II]

Possibly, but windows is renound for stealing focus from its own windows just because the program wants the attention

[SMELTN]

I use Digsby and it does the same thing.. I absolutely HATE this "feature" because if I am playing a game like BF:BC2 it completely blacks my screen out and then makes the game windowed, but when you click back on the screen it has to change back to full screen... Has gotten me killed several times as well as just being annoying as crap. I would love to be able to run Digsby while still playing games though

[Tarzan]

Would a Full Screen Busy plugin help http://lostrealm.com/pidgin/fsb/ more or less the same some antivirus works. Go zzzzz in "gaming mode". Probably more things to test here http://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/ThirdPartyPlugins

Does it make a difference if you have enabled or disabled "Pidgin GTK+ Theme Control" plugin?

If you have ticked "Flash Window when IMs are received" does it cause game to minimize?

For fun I tried IRC in Pidgin and so ended up in their own channel. Was surprised it was so populated, think 150 people. You could ask there. If issue really is a known bug they will know, only ones who have a clue http://pidgin.im/support/

[GreatStalin]

  On 05/09/2010 at 13:57, Phenom II said:

Possibly, but windows is renound for stealing focus from its own windows just because the program wants the attention

It is? I must've been lucky these past 10 years then!

[migo]

It is a windows problem, it shouldn't allow it in the first place.

[Mr. Gibs]

  On 16/09/2010 at 06:44, migo said:

It is a windows problem, it shouldn't allow it in the first place.

  Quote

Another Steal focus problem, I wish MS would ******** fix this ! Grrr

It isn't a MS problem. There are already provisions in place on Windows that try to prevent this from happening, registry keys ForegroundLockTimeout and ForegroundFlashCount for example.

The problem is retarded developers who seem to think there applications are more important than what you're doing. And I honestly can't think of a way MS can permanently stop that from happenning. Normal, properly coded, applications will just flash in the taskbar or use a system balloon notification (if needed).

[migo]

They could remove any functionality for stealing focus from the OS and just have a notification list accessible from the system tray.