424358 - Background tabs shouldn't steel focus.

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 123913

(Firefox :: Tabbed Browser, enhancement)

Description

[John A]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9b4) Gecko/2008030317 Firefox/3.0b4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9b4) Gecko/2008030317 Firefox/3.0b4

I usually open multiple tabs in the background while continuing with what I was doing. Sometimes this happens to be typing a search query that ends with me pressing "Enter".

If a background tab for some reason pops up a dialog-box at this time, Firefox will automatically switch focus to this background tab resulting in me pressing "Enter" on a dialog-box I have not had the chance to read.

This is in my opinion not the way Firefox (or any application) should behave. 

It is always very annoying get interupted in the middle of what you are doing. It is even worse when the interruption results in your input intended for one thing ends up in places you couldn't anticipate.

This is a little like what Bug 125282 wants to accomplish but deals with a different area of the problem.

To sum it up: Firefox should respect what the user has put the focus, and only INFORM about what is going on in other places, NOT INTERUPT.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Change the option Accept cookies from sites to "ask every time"
2. Goto a site that links to a site that has cookies. For example search google and use one of the search results.
3. Middle-click or Cmd/ctrl-click the link.
Actual Results:  
The site opened in the background steals focus after some time asking me if I want to accept a cookie for that site. This will sometimes coincide with me just finishing entering a new search query, just about pressing "Enter", when firefox unexpectedly pops up a dialog-box that catches my "Enter" intended for google.com.

Expected Results:  
It would be far better if the background-tab informed me that something needs my attention (something like the way Windows taskbar flashes orange).

Then when I switch to that "attention-wanting" tab, I get presented the dialog-box.