log in screen does not get focus/top
 

Prior to the most recent patch the login screen would gain the focus and put itself on top of the screen once it launched. It doesn't now. Not sure if that is intentional.

I launch RW along with generally several other programs and expect it to jump to the front when it is ready for me to log in in.

FWIW, I like it better not bringing itself to the front.

I on the other hand wish that it did come to the front.

As RW takes time to startup, I am usually multitasking somewhere else and forget RW until I notice the icon has appeared in the task bar.

Jerry

I'm with Parody here. I hate when programs steal focus from me. If I want to be focused on RW, I'll focus on it. I don't need it to assume that I want it to be focused on.

Agreed.. I hate having something steal the focus .. it always seems to happen while I am typing, and too often I've wound up triggering unwanted behaviors due to keystrokes.

Like clobbering the now auto-saved password on the Login panel, perhaps??

That's now happened to me a few times during development when running under the debugger, which behaves differently from how the product normally operates.

In any case, this is probably one of those items where we'll get a near 50/50 division between users. So I'm honestly not sure how to handle it. Yes, we could add more preferences for users to configure, but that takes time and still requires users for whom things work "wrong" to discover the preference and go configure it. That vast majority won't know the preference exists in the first place and will simply think that the product is "wrong" for their liking. If anyone has a good recommendation for things like this, I'm open to suggestions!

At load, add a pop-up (with a check box so 50% of the folks can cancel seeing it) that states:

"Realm Works takes a moment to load. Grab your favorite beverage, close your eyes, take a sip and enjoy life. This load is our way of helping you slow down and reflect. Life is too short to multitask your way to death. Besides, you DESERVE a few seconds of peaceful time to yourself. Enjoy it. And thank you for being you."

By the time you finish reading the pop-up, it should be loaded or pretty close.

Love it!!! :)

Except with my new laptop RW doesn't take many moments to load.

My problem is that when I start a block of time to do game prep I'll open RealmWorks, Hero Labs, Evernote, Google Docs, and a Chrome tab with EN World, and will probably already have Chrome tabs with e-mail open. I have a Phrase express maco that will fire up most of those.

Too many times when I've used macros to open multiple programs I'll be reading through e-mail or trying to respond to an e-mail and program one pops up...so I alt-tab back to e-mail, then program two pops up, ugh, ALT-TAB....then program 3... ARGH WHO THE HELL EVER THOUGHT THIS WAS PROPER BEHAVIOR AND ISN'T THERE A WINDOWS SETTING TO PREVENT THIS MADNESS...and I go into my best Sam Kinison impression, except with fouler language.

Actually, I don't blame the developers of the programs so much...I think that this should be an OS-level preference. Which is was in XP if you were comfortable editing the registry. According to Microsoft moderators on various Windows forums (example), properly programmed applications *should not* steal focus. But, obviously, Windows still allows this.

Some solutions:

Windows Focus Logger will log all Windows Focus events so that you can determine which application is responsible for stealing focus and allows you to takes actions to prevent that application from stealing focus again.

Always on Top. This doesn't really prevent focus from being stolen but will keep your selected window always on time. This is nice if you have a video playing but need to switch to another app and do not want the video covered. Mainly I use it to keep the calculator app on top of a full sized document like a PDF files, spreadsheet or something.

I have not installed these on my new laptop yet as I try to minimize the number of applications I have start up and run in the background. I reinstall things once reminded how much I need them. Always on Top is less useful when you use multiple monitors. I only miss it when working from a coffee show, airport, etc an am using one screen.

If Rob doesn't implement this, I'm going to have to figure out a way for that message to auto pop because it's so flipping awesome!!