how to prevent new windows from stealing focus in gnome

Question

I'm running Ubuntu 9.04 and I have the window manager configured for "focus follows mouse" but new application windows will steal the focus. Seems like there are many threads out there complaining about this behavior, but I see no solutions, am I missing something?

Answer 1

My best solution for this so far is to install Compiz and within it take the following actions: select "General Options" from the top of the first window, open the "Focus & Raise Behaviour" tab, select "Very High" from the "Focus Prevention Level" dropdown, and enter "any" in the "Focus Prevention Windows" text box.

I'm getting used to the fact that I need to visually scan the applications at the bottom of the window on a regular basis and it produces some odd behaviors such as applications which previously had focus but then yield it to other applications after a dialog has been completed.

Still looking for better solutions for this, and I expect that I could get better behavior by tweaking the settings in Compiz, but I'm too busy for this.

Answer 2

It's funny that I found the solution for my Ubuntu and GNOME on OpenSolaris FAQ:

The solution is to start:

gconftool-2 -s -t string /apps/metacity/general/focus_new_windows "strict"

or, alternatively you can start gconf-editor and fix /apps/metacity/general/focus_new_windows to "strict"