Bug#340725: Simple Tk script demonstrating the problem

[Tim Cutts]

The following Tk script demonstrates the problem:

#!/usr/bin/wish

button .b \
    -text "Click to raise window 2" \
    -command "raise .t"
pack .b

toplevel .t
pack [label .t.l -text "window 2"]

Run the script.  Move the window with the button over the top of window
2.  Click the button.

On a Sarge system, the other window will be raised as expected.
On Etch, the button for the window to be raised in the window list at
the bottom of the screen gently pulses instead, and the actual raise
will not happen until the user acknowledges that button.

We have a number of Tcl/Tk apps here which use this method of raising
hidden windows (for example if a user has hidden a window behind
something else, and then selects a menu item that would normally create
the window - obviously we should raise the existing window, rather than
create a new one).  The reason I discovered this problem and searched
for this bug was a user who is testing Etch for us complained that it
made the applications very annoying to use.

There doesn't seem to be any configuration option that I can see to
control this behaviour.

It seems to me that this change in metacity's behaviour was sensible (in
that it is designed to stop applications arbitrarily grabbing focus) but
it seems to be somewhat mis-implemented; surely a raise event coming
from the *same application* should not be bound by this restriction?

Hope we can find a solution to this...

Tim

PS.  I should add that occasionally the problem seems to disappear, and
metacity starts to Do The Right Thing.  I have not yet ascertained what
the situation is that triggers that.

-- 
Dr Tim Cutts
Informatics Systems Group
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SA, UK



-- 
The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute is operated by Genome Research 
Limited, a charity registered in England with number 1021457 and a 
company registered in England with number 2742969, whose registered 
office is 215 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BE.