277406 - Thunderbird is raised on top (steals focus) after opening Word or Excel attachment

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[Laurent Duperval]

When I open a Word or Excel attachment with TB 1.0,  the Thunderbird window is
raised on top and effectively covers the new window.

I haven't seen this with other types of attachments (I tested PDF, PowerPoint
and OpenOffice.org attachments). I tested it with Outlook and I don't get this
behaviour.

L

Comment 1

[phajdu]

I have the same problem with TB 1.0.2 HU

[e-mail]

Comment 2

[Jeongkyu Kim]

same problem with trunk build on Win2K3.

Comment 3

[Jeongkyu Kim]

same problem with trunk build on Win2K3.

Comment 4

[Jeongkyu Kim]

The problem seems to be download progress dialog. When tb opens pdf file, file
download is done before launching acrobat reader. However, for xls, excel is
launched first and the progress dialog gets the focus. It would be more clear if
you open big file. 

Comment 5

[Jeongkyu Kim]

Attachment: opening dialog shown after excel being launched

(In reply to comment #4)
> The problem seems to be download progress dialog. When tb opens pdf file,
file
> download is done before launching acrobat reader. However, for xls, excel is
> launched first and the progress dialog gets the focus. It would be more clear
if
> you open big file. 
> 

It was my misunderstanding. The file download is done already when
::ShellExecute() is called. The problem seems to be 'opening dialog'. I could
get screenshot of it by putting breakpoint at right next line of ShellExecute()
in nsLocalFile::Launch().

Comment 6

[Jeongkyu Kim]

Finally, after several hours of research, I figured out cause of this bug. :-)
Actually, opening dialog is not an issue at all. The specialty of msoffice
documents here is that windows shell uses DDE to open them. This bug did not
happen when I chagned my system setting not to use DDE. However, unlike
thunderbird, mozilla mail works as expected whether shell use DDE or not. I
found that the key difference is parent of helper application dialog.

In 'show' function of 'nsHelperAppDlg.js.in', thunderbird specifies parent
window when it opens the dialog.  Due to this fact, the dialog acts like modal
dialog - it stays on top of main window.  More importantly, it gives focus back
to main window when it closed. This intention seems to be ignored when focus is
transferred to another application. However, it still in effect and turns out
this bug when windows shell uses DDE to open documents. 

So, a simple way to solve this bug is not to set parent of helper application
dialog. I created a patch for this. I understand that we will lose benefit of
modal-like behavior of the dialog by applying the patch. However, I believe it
is worth to fix this bug considering the fact that msoffice is still major
office application on windows platform.

Comment 7

[Jeongkyu Kim]

Attachment: patch to set parent of helper application dialog as null

see comment #6.
seeking r?

Comment 8

[David :Bienvenu]

*** Bug 257625 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 9

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

Confirmed

Comment 10

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

Scott, the patch is working fine for me with a current branch build. Could you
give r= so that patch could fix this ugly bug for Thunderbird 1.5?

Comment 11

[Scott MacGregor]

we wouldn't block the release for this. I'll put it in the milestone bucket for
consideration and will re-nominate if I think we need to take it. I"d like to
know what the down side to this change is since it also effects Firefox.

Comment 12

[Scott MacGregor]

too late for 1.5 now and we still don't know what the ramifications are for
Firefox which also uses this code. 

Comment 13

[u115577]

*** Bug 286329 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 14

[Tore Krudtaa]

I have a customer that normally would prefer Firefox instead of Explorer.

This bug is really annoying for them, since they download and open Word and Excel files a lot.

Can someone confirm if this will be fixed in the next version of Firefox. And eventually when that new release is expected to be finished?

The customer is now using Firefox 1.5.0.1

We need this fix for Firefox!!!!!

Comment 15

[Radek 'sysKin' Czyz]

This has been awaiting review for over a year now. Perhaps it was forgotten? Asking for blocking-tb2.

Comment 16

[stephen menard]

Looking for resolution to this bug.
Some customers are really disliking this FEATURE of Thunderbird
Please allow this to be fixed soon

Comment 17

[Adam Guthrie]

Pretty sure this will be fixed by bug 259816.

Comment 18

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #17)
> Pretty sure this will be fixed by bug 259816.

did this fix it? 

Comment 19

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

(In reply to comment #18)
>> Pretty sure this will be fixed by bug 259816.
> 
> did this fix it? 

Yes, this is fixed now. Tested with version 2 beta 1 (20061021).

Comment 20

[Scott MacGregor]

Comment on attachment 183276 [details] [diff] [review]
patch to set parent of helper application dialog as null

looks like this issue was fixed in another bug so we don't need this now.

Comment 21

[Paul Hirsch]

this issue is not fixed.  

Thunderbird version 2.0.0.4 (20070604) (windows)

Still doing it, doesn't matter what the attachment is.  ZIP, PDF, DOC, * - they all lose focus to the thunderbird main window when an attachement is opened.

This has been happening with all versions of Thunderbird.  Please re-open this bug and check the status of the focus-grabbing that occurs.

Comment 22

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

Sorry, I cannot reproduce this problem with 2.0.0.5 and WinXP. Please give us all necessary version information about Windows, Office and other affected applications.