tickr keeps stealing focus

Bug #900759 reported by antisa
14
This bug affects 2 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Unity
Fix Released
Undecided
Unassigned
tickr (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
High
Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin
unity (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

tickr keeps stealing focus when switching to next news feed

Using:
Ubuntu 11.10
tickr version 0.5.2

Related branches

Revision history for this message
Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin (manu-tm) wrote :

Hi,
Thanks for reporting. Could you be more explicit about the issue?

Changed in tickr (Ubuntu):
assignee: nobody → Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin (manu-tm)
Revision history for this message
antisa (antisa) wrote : Re: [Bug 900759] Re: tickr keeps stealing focus

Sorry if I was vague.

The tickr starts automatically on my Ubuntu 11.10. Then when I start,
for example Firefox, the Firefox window will be focused, but as soon the
tickr starts scrolling another news feed, from another source that is,
it "jumps" to foreground - stals focus from (in this example) Firefox
window (or any other window for that matter). That's kind of annoying,
so I thought I'd report a bug.
--
Best regards,

Ante.

Revision history for this message
Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin (manu-tm) wrote :

No prob ;) One thing you can do is unchecking 'window always-on-top' so that tickr, once in the background, will stay there (although I don't know if this is the behaviour you wish it to have.) If this doesn't solves the problem, just let me know.

(Off-topic: version 0.5.4 is now in Ubuntu backports so you may upgrade by simply enabling backports. Not that many changes, but several bug-fixes.)

Best regards,

Manu

Revision history for this message
antisa (antisa) wrote :

That option was already unchecked. I even tried checking it and again
unchecking it but the behaviour persisted.
My backports are enabled but there's no update to 0.5.4 version.
--
Best regards,

Ante.

Revision history for this message
Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin (manu-tm) wrote :

That's strange. I'm (still) on Natty and the behaviour is ok. So I will try on Oneiric in a VM and let you know asap. About backports, 0.5.4 is the first available version in Ubuntu so you should first remove tickr then install it (sudo apt-get install tickr.)

Changed in tickr (Ubuntu):
status: New → In Progress
Revision history for this message
Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin (manu-tm) wrote :

In case you got it from my PPA (https://launchpad.net/~manu-tm/+archive/newsrssticker), you should disable it in your sources.list.

Revision history for this message
Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin (manu-tm) wrote :

I just tried on Oneiric with unity and, yes, the ticker doesn't behave as expected. So I suppose you're using unity as well. Of course, I will check my code (and let you know) but it could too be unity which change a lot of default/expected behaviours (window-manager wise.)

Revision history for this message
antisa (antisa) wrote :

In the meantime I installed 0.5.4 version and the problem has
dissapeared. Everything works as expected now!
Thanks for a great program Emmanuel. I'm out of money right now but I'll
chip in as soon as I can.

One more thing, could you add a translation option on Launchpad because
I'd be willing to translate it to Croatian?
--
Best regards,

Ante.

Revision history for this message
Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin (manu-tm) wrote :

NIce to hear it's ok now. ;) About translations (thanks!), I'm currently checking out how it can be done.

Revision history for this message
antisa (antisa) wrote :

And just one more thing. A suggestion actually. You should make tickr
remember scroll speed. Personally the default is to slow for me.
--
Best regards,

Ante.

Revision history for this message
Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin (manu-tm) wrote :

Hmm, scroll speed is supposed to be saved. Make sure you use the 'save' button in the pref window because using 'apply' then 'cancel' will revert to old settings.

Changed in tickr (Ubuntu):
status: In Progress → New
Revision history for this message
antisa (antisa) wrote :

Oh, so that's the "Delay" option. I was confused by the name, I kept
looking for something like "scroll speed" or whatever.
--
Best regards,

Ante.

Revision history for this message
Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin (manu-tm) wrote :

I agree the name is a little bit cryptic.

Revision history for this message
Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin (manu-tm) wrote :

Hello Ante,
There is now translation options for tickr at: https://translations.launchpad.net/tickr and I will import translation templates asap. As I'm not familiar with the whole process, feel free to let me know what must be done/changed.

Changed in tickr (Ubuntu):
status: New → Invalid
Revision history for this message
antisa (antisa) wrote :

The problem remains. Unfortunately even version 0.5.4 keeps stealing
focus from other programs.
--
Best regards,

Ante.

Revision history for this message
Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin (manu-tm) wrote :

Are you using unity?

Changed in tickr (Ubuntu):
status: Invalid → In Progress
Revision history for this message
Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin (manu-tm) wrote :

After checking my code, I found that some requests to the window manager which are issued every time a new feed is read could be issued only once at program startup and then whenever settings are changed. That should solve the issue. So I will make a beta for you to test, if you wish to (soon ;)

Revision history for this message
antisa (antisa) wrote :

Yes I'm using Unity. Looking forward to the beta. I don't know if it
makes any difference but I've added tickr to the startup applications.
--
Best regards,

Ante.

Revision history for this message
Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin (manu-tm) wrote :

I don't think so. And I'll let you know when the beta is ready.

Revision history for this message
Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin (manu-tm) wrote :

The beta is now available from: http://www.newsrssticker.com/list_all_downloadables.php

Direct download link is: http://www.newsrssticker.com/unstable/tickr_0.5.5~beta8-1_i386.deb

Please let me know if it fix the problem. One option you could also set is 'disable error/warning popup window'.

Revision history for this message
antisa (antisa) wrote :

I'm sorry to say the problem still isn't fixed. The focus still moves
from an application to the tickr.

Revision history for this message
Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin (manu-tm) wrote :

Hmmm, it seems it only happens with unity and I'm not using it so it's a little bit difficult for me to test. But I will make another beta with extra changes.

Revision history for this message
Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin (manu-tm) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin (manu-tm) wrote :

I think you should definitely report the bug to Unity. Apparently, they are other programs that have been affected by focus issues too.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+filebug

Revision history for this message
Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin (manu-tm) wrote :

(oops, I meant definitively)

Revision history for this message
antisa (antisa) wrote :

Ok. Thanks!

affects: tickr (Ubuntu) → unity (Ubuntu)
Changed in unity (Ubuntu):
status: In Progress → New
affects: unity (Ubuntu) → tickr (Ubuntu)
Changed in tickr (Ubuntu):
status: New → In Progress
Changed in tickr (Ubuntu):
status: In Progress → Invalid
Changed in tickr (Ubuntu):
status: Invalid → In Progress
Revision history for this message
Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin (manu-tm) wrote :

I will keep this bug report open until I get some response from unity (It will probably take 'some time'.)

Revision history for this message
Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin (manu-tm) wrote :

It's been a couple of months since the last post here. Ante, if you're still subscribed to this bug report, it would be nice if you would let me know if the problem is still appearing with latest versions of Tickr and Unity?

Revision history for this message
antisa (antisa) wrote :

Dana 02.06.2012 00:42, Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin je napisao:
> It's been a couple of months since the last post here. Ante, if you're
> still subscribed to this bug report, it would be nice if you would let
> me know if the problem is still appearing with latest versions of Tickr
> and Unity?
>
As far as I can tell it doesn't steal focus anymore. I'm on 12.04,
installed Tickr from Ubuntu Software Center. However, now it doesn't
show up on all workspaces even though I've checked that option in
Preferences.

Cheers,
Ante.

Revision history for this message
Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin (manu-tm) wrote :

I've just fixed the problem of not showing on all workspaces. See:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/tickr/+bug/1007346

Thanks for your feedback! ;)

Cheers!

Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin

Changed in tickr (Ubuntu):
status: In Progress → Fix Released
Changed in unity:
status: New → Fix Released
Changed in unity (Ubuntu):
status: New → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Chris (chris-neary) wrote :

This bug is still persistent for me - I'm using Ubuntu Studio (XFCE desktop, no Unity) and unless I tick 'Icon in taskbar', the focus is stolen to Tickr every - I don't know, maybe every 1000 ms.

It's not too big a deal to have it persist in the window list, but I think it still steals the focus when the source file changes/rotates.

Revision history for this message
Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin (manu-tm) wrote :

Thanks, I'm reopening it.

affects: tickr (Ubuntu) → tickr
Changed in tickr:
status: Fix Released → In Progress
affects: tickr → tickr (Ubuntu)
Changed in tickr (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → High
Revision history for this message
Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin (manu-tm) wrote :

Hmmm, it seems to happen when 'icon-in-taskbar' is disabled so I've checked the related code and found something very possibly wrong. I've just uploaded a beta version at: https://launchpad.net/~manu-tm/+archive/testing
(I tested with Xubuntu in a VM.)

Revision history for this message
Chris (chris-neary) wrote :

Ok, so it seems not to happen in 0.6.2~beta3-1 at the moment. I have Always On Top enabled and Icon in Taskbar disabled, and it would appear to not steal focus anymore. :)

However, while I was testing this feature, I got bored waiting and increased the scroll time to get to the point where the feed source changes: My scroll delay is set to 20 but when mouse-scrolling to increase it, the undesired behaviour returns!

For my purposes it's fixed, but I fear this bug isn't *quite* squished completely yet. :S I will keep testing and report back after a few days usage.

Thanks for your expedient response and awesome work, Emmanuel!

Revision history for this message
Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin (manu-tm) wrote :

Thanks! I think that because of the speed change (with mouse scrolling), the program detects that some parameters have been modified and recompute its'main window for the next feed. Hopefully, I should be able to fix that. ;)

Revision history for this message
Chris (chris-neary) wrote :

Excellent! You're awesome.

I think there's still a visual loss of focus for half a second - at least, it happens so fast I think I see the titlebar of my active application become inactive and then active again at the very end of the loop cycle as the first feed is scrolled again... but it's just a visual thing, I don't think I've lost typing focus as it's happened yet.

As I said, if this bug makes a re-appearance for me I'll let you know, I'll be testing the beta3-1 for a few days I should think. :)

Changed in tickr (Ubuntu):
status: In Progress → Fix Committed
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package tickr - 0.6.2-1

---------------
tickr (0.6.2-1) experimental; urgency=low

  * Non standard feed rank support in OPML file.

  * Add new optional 'feed re-ordering by user' feature.

  * Add in libetm-0.4.4/str_mem.c/h: (int) str_is_num(const char *) and
    (int) str_is_blank(const char *).

  * In feed picker win, 'enter' in (rank_/url_)entry launches 'add/upd'
    (GTK_RESPONSE_ADD) instead of 'ok (single)' (GTK_RESPONSE_SINGLE).

  * Question at program start-up about new feed list format conversion:
    if version = 0.6.2 and feed list exists and feed list backup doesn't
    exist, create backup and convert to new format.

  * In tickr_feedpicker.c: fix 'cancel' action.

  * New func FList *f_list_clone(FList *) in tickr_list/c/h.

  * Use GTK_RESPONSE_CANCEL_CLOSE only.

  * In compute_surface_and_win(), remove:
      if (prm->icon_in_taskbar == 'n')
        gtk_window_deiconify(GTK_WINDOW(env->win));
    from update_win_dims() (why was it there?) to fix 'tickr keeps
    stealing focus' bug. Also replace params_have_been_changed() with
    win_params_have_been_changed(). (LP: #900759, #951452, #1017107)

  * Fix (regression bug) segfault which occurs when opening text file
    and attempting to 'format_resource()' 'not-generated-if-resource-is-
    file' XML_DUMP_EXTRA file.

  * Libetm version 0.4.3 -> 0.4.4 (see below.)

  * Add get_appdata-dir_w() in libetm-0.4.4:win32_specific.c and
    get_appdata_dir_utf8() in tickr_resource.c to fix non-ascii (for
    instance cyrillic) user name in app data dir issue on win32.
    Also remove seemingly useless g_win32_locale_filename_from_utf8()
    stuff on win32.

  * If 'item title' and 'item description' both unchecked in pref win,
    warn about 'pointless' setup and ask for confirmation before saving
    config.

  * Add new TickerEnv member (int) mouse_x_in_drwa used to continuously
    tracks (guess what?) mouse x position. Now we have:
    - tooltips with descriptions when ticker displays only titles
    and
    - tooltips with titles when ticker displays only descriptions.

  * Add fp_extra stuff in tickr_feedparser.c to get item titles /
    descriptions (in tooltips and others) when they are no displayed.

  * Remove tmp files when exiting tickr_resource.c:format_resource().

  * Add env->c_surf test in shift2left_callback(). (LP: #1011316)

 -- Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin <email address hidden> Sun, 15 Jul 2012 22:53:02 +0200

Changed in tickr (Ubuntu):
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Gabriele N. Tornetta (phoenix1987) wrote :

On Ubuntu 16.04 with Unity and Tickr 0.6.4, yet the problem seems to be there. Every time a new feed is displayed Tickr gets the focus and I have to retype whatever I was typing in the window that previously owned the focus. Even enabling "Icon in taskbar" doesn't solve the problem.

Revision history for this message
Gabriele N. Tornetta (phoenix1987) wrote :

If this "bug" still only affects Unity users, then chances are there is no problem with the app code, but with Unity. It seems that setting a rule in the Focus Prevention Windows (e.g. ... & class=Tickr) in CompizConfig Settings Manager -> General Options -> Focus & Raise Behaviour solves the issue.

Revision history for this message
Emmanuel Thomas-Maurin (manu-tm) wrote :

Hi!

Thanks for reporting that. I can reopen the bug report if necessary.

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