As a user,
I want your application to randomly steal focus
So that,
I enter my password managers main password into a chat box

@xssfox webeeeeexxxxxx

@xssfox Oh, the level of white-hot rage this app behavior produces in me.

@xssfox 😬

@xssfox welcome to my world, also see recent releases of Mac OS that have adopted Windows behaviour of every starting application stealing focus, booting a Mac OS machine while each application I had running last time starts and steals focus from the one I’m trying to type in is one day going to result in me doing a physical experiment to determine how quickly the laptop reaches terminal velocity…

@xssfox Once rebooted a critical prod box in the middle of the day because microsoft decided to steal focus and put up a 'reboot now' ok box directly over the button I was milliseconds from clicking on. Dumbest UI ever created. Rage doesn't begin to describe how infuriating it is. I'd like to meet the moron that thought it was a good idea to put that UI into the OS.

@xssfox also the users:

2000 bugreports and an ongoing shitstorm online: WHY does gnome only show "your application is ready" instead of actually giving this new window the focus!!??

@xssfox oh yes. And the evil twin story where apps change their on-screen layout as they load things, so that the button/link I’m hitting with my finger is actually something else by the time it touches the screen.

@xssfox *looks at VS Code*

@xssfox *******

ah, shit. It got me again.

@xssfox welcome to #citrix remote desktop

@xssfox Discord?

@devopscats @xssfox With me, this new world of everything stealing focus has simply resulted in me happily typing PINs and passwords into any box that presents itself.

Corporate ITsec will surely take care of it. So I can relax and enjoy the shelter provided by the gentle hand of capitalism.

@xssfox user story format correct, DoR checked off and business ranking set to zero, this is highest priority by PdM because a single executive from one of our biggest clients told them so

@devopscats @xssfox in other words, they’ve turned me from a professionally paranoid user into a live threat.

@anotherdaniel @xssfox
I know an IDE (for some industry stuff) that changes the menu and submenu ordering according to the Alphabet. Now you often change the IDE language because some functions can only use non latin Letters if the IDE is Set to the specific language. And all of this messes heavily with the OCR functions of the sdk.

And of course they also translated functions names. So there is a good Chance that you break programs if you copy one to another IDE.

@xssfox UI updating or refreshing in ways that change what actions do after an interactive screen has been presented to the user is one of my toxic patterns.

I think UI should be turn based, not like a first person shooter.

@wolf480pl @xssfox I think it's the consequence of more and more "responsive" UI frameworks.
Designers and developers greedily accept them and we're now beginning to pay that price.
Hopefully, a solution will emerge.
Turn-based frameworks, or patterns that ensure that behavior invoked by already visible elements is immutable or only ever switches to doing nothing.

@anotherdaniel @xssfox
Looking at you, every Jenkins view-of-jobs page.

And WSJT-x.

And GridTracker.

@xssfox One of my coworkers has a yubikey that randomly pastes its private key (?) every few minutes into whatever text box has focus. Often to hilarious results when we are in a serious teams meeting

@xssfox This is why your passwords should always be phrases that look like you just fat-fingered them into the wrong chat window. ;)

ttyl, ona call :/
maybe, idk? LOL
Fred may knw fs
I'll txt, have the #?

@xssfox imo, it should be:
is there an app with focus ? if yes, deny focus request
otherwise ? allow it

will make experience more clunky but still less clunky than currently is

@xssfox "no this isn't a password, my cat jumped on the keyboard"