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Little rant about programs that grab keyboard focus

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TallyMan
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14 Nov 2009, 4:50 am

I really dislike those operating system or application pop up message boxes that grab the keyboard focus. I'm busy typing away at high speed in a different application or online and a box pops up grabbing one or more keystrokes and disappears again. I've just had one a few minutes ago. No idea what it was or what "option" I inadvertently selected; it popped up and was gone again before I could even see the Window properly. Damned annoying.

On more than once occasion I've inadvertently messed something up due to this poor programming practice.


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0_equals_true
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14 Nov 2009, 8:56 am

Yes this is mostly nag/malware like Norton



CloudWalker
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14 Nov 2009, 9:24 pm

Yeah, it can be annoying.

If you are using Windows, and you have paused slightly when the window pop up, then you may want to try setting this registry key to a higher value:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
ForegroundLockTimeout

It controls the amount time (ms) without user input before a window can steal the focus of a foreground window. It won't stop everything, especially not those that will pop up even in the middle of your typing.



pakled
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14 Nov 2009, 11:17 pm

good ta know...;) I know what you mean; programs that pop up on top of everything, sometimes while they're still loading.

Hates them, wicked, bad, naughty objects!...;)


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TallyMan
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15 Nov 2009, 5:16 am

CloudWalker wrote:
If you are using Windows, and you have paused slightly when the window pop up, then you may want to try setting this registry key to a higher value:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
ForegroundLockTimeout

It controls the amount time (ms) without user input before a window can steal the focus of a foreground window. It won't stop everything, especially not those that will pop up even in the middle of your typing.


The current value (decimal) is: 200000 so I guess this must be microseconds rather than milliseconds. In which case it is 0.2 of a second which seems very low. If the units are milliseconds it implies 200 seconds which seems way too high :?


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Tollorin
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15 Nov 2009, 11:05 am

TallyMan wrote:
CloudWalker wrote:
If you are using Windows, and you have paused slightly when the window pop up, then you may want to try setting this registry key to a higher value:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
ForegroundLockTimeout

It controls the amount time (ms) without user input before a window can steal the focus of a foreground window. It won't stop everything, especially not those that will pop up even in the middle of your typing.


The current value (decimal) is: 200000 so I guess this must be microseconds rather than milliseconds. In which case it is 0.2 of a second which seems very low. If the units are milliseconds it implies 200 seconds which seems way too high :?

Maybe it's the number of cycles: a idea like that, I'm don't know that much about computers.


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Keith
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15 Nov 2009, 1:16 pm

I find some websites do this too. You can type in an address, press enter, only to find the webpage you get is a "search" for the rest of the url you type.

It can be annoying when you press [ENTER] just at that moment something else pops up and you confirm to a restart or delete, or something.

Or typing away, and a box comes up and as you're typing you get "beep beep beep" fro every keystroke. Then I forget what I type as this time I HAVE to use the mouse to get rid.

I wish MS would keep focus on what we are working or actively working on, rather than switch to NEW... GRRR

I'll switch when I'm ready, thank you very much



V001
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27 Nov 2009, 3:23 pm

If you have win xp this tool can stop programs from stealing keyboard focus.
Tweak UI <-- that program
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/Down ... rtoys.mspx
start the program than General>Focus>Prevent apps from stealing focus.
and flash taskbar only 1 time or what ever.
Use with care but tweak ui sould have been shipped with winxp.



CloudWalker
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28 Nov 2009, 7:59 pm

TallyMan wrote:
The current value (decimal) is: 200000 so I guess this must be microseconds rather than milliseconds. In which case it is 0.2 of a second which seems very low. If the units are milliseconds it implies 200 seconds which seems way too high :?


Microsoft's document say it's in ms. Actually Tweak UI mentioned by V001 will set this key to 200000 when "Prevent apps from stealing focus" is ticked. Perhaps some programs you used already set this value for you.



Friskeygirl
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28 Nov 2009, 9:07 pm

This always happens in IM windows in Second Life, I'll be typing away when a new
IM pops up and I end up saying something to 100's of people in a group IM, much
to my embarrassment.