[throwaway2037]

Seriously question about focus stealing: What is state of the art at the moment for desktop windowing systems? Is the "correct" action when a window wants to steal focus: Pop under the active window and give a non-focus stealing hint (UI balloon?) to the user that this window needs attention?

I can think of two real world examples: (1) debugger hits breakpoint and steals focus (this is sometimes configurable), (2) WiFi needs re-/auth.

[jabiko]

I don't think there should be a "correct" way to steal focus. When I'm editing a document, I don't want _any_ application to steal focus. I don't want a window to show up and steal focus when something needs reauthentication. Maybe the developer of an application thought that his use case is of the very utmost urgency and requires immediate action. I don't agree. Just notify me over the standard way that the system provides and I will deal with it when I want to.

For the debugger use case: If the IDE has already focus, it can pass an activation token to the debugger and the debugger can use this to focus itself. If the IDE is not focused, I don't want the debugger to steal focus.