New windows open behind current one

[dstiles]

Linux Mint Maya if it matters...

For the past couple of years one (only) of my four Mint machines has been opening windows behind the current one, necessitating either clicking on the icon on the task bar or dropping the current window to the task bar.

An example is opening a New or Reply box in thunderbird, but non-mozilla apps do it as well.

I read, when this first happened, that it was a safety feature - you couldn't accidentally type a password into a newly opened window by accident. I can no longer even find that reference. :(

Does anyone know how to overcome this and return new windows to the foreground when they open? Please?

[graeme_p]

Focus settings? Which desktop is it - MATE, Cinnamon, something else?

[dstiles]

Mate. Sorry.

Where would I find focus settings? I've been through 3 config editors and haven't seen anything likely. :(

[graeme_p]

They are buried fairly deep!

On my laptop (ubuntu with MATE 1.6) I found the focus settings in the Dconf editor (not gconf!) in:

org > mate > marco > general

The defaults are

focus: click
focus-new-windows: smart

I am not sure its the problem, but its worth trying.

[dstiles]

Not in dconf but I found it in MateConfig Configuration Editor 1.2.0 - apps / marco / general, set as you describe. focus-new-windws help says...

"It has two possible values; "smart" applies the user's normal focus mode, and "strict" results in windows started from a terminal not being given focus."

Sounds to me as if it may only refer to terminal launch? If it's more general then I now need to find "this" user's "normal focus mode" :(

I suspect it's in some schema somewhere but there are rather a lot of quite complex ones to work through. Another day.

I have three config editors, all a bit different and all claiming to edit my entire set of configs. None of them does and they sometimes do not agree with each other; or one will alter a setting where another fails. :(

I found a schema that may apply in gconf schemas / metacity / general...
/schemas/apps/metacity/general/focus_new_window

...but I have no obvious folder /shemas - I assume it's actually a sub-folder of something else; I'll have a deeper look.

Thanks for looking, anyway. :)

[graeme_p]

I knows, I was wondering whether the WM can tell the difference between a terminal and another app.

That is the problem with a dual transition: from Gconf to Dconf and from Gnome (components) to Mate (equivalents).

[dstiles]

And then there is KDE config. :)

I'm trying to remove as much KDE as possible, which should help there - see local discussion re: tkremind/reminder as a way of losing kalarm/akonadi. I have to say, though, in that respect I have yet to find anything to compete with klipper (which is in itself a poor substitute for Windows Clipmate).

[dstiles]

Just for reference, I've just found the focus references in dconf at org / gnome / desktop / wm / preferences