Error dialog steals focus?

[NintendoManiac64]

(tested in Cinnamon and Xfce in both live sessions as well as local installations that were fully updated as of 2022-07-15)

Describe the bug
In the 'Software Manager', if you try installing a program (e.g. GtkHash) while you have no network connection and, when the expected error appears because you have no network connection, if drag with your mouse in the area to the left of the search box below the title bar, the error message will get sent off the side of the screen.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. boot into Cinnamon or Xfce Mint 21 beta (whether a local installation or a live session)
2. make sure you are disconnected from the internet (e.g. unplug your ethernet cable, or disconnect/disable your network connection through Mint itself)
3. open 'Software Manager'
4. search for any application that is not installed by default, such as 'GtkHash'
5. with your network connection still disconnected, try to install 'GtkHash' (or whatever other application you chose)
6. after a few seconds, an error message will appear - do NOT close it
7. with your mouse, click and drag in the area to the left of the search bar below the title bar (refer to the attached screenshot for exact placement)
8. as soon as you move your mouse a little bit while dragging (something like 3 pixels?), the window for the error message will be sent off the side of the screen

Expected behavior
The window with the error message should not be sent off the side of the screen from attempting to drag a different window.

Screenshots

[clefebvre]

This is a weird one :)

I can reproduce it.

I think the error dialog comes from synaptic. What seems to happen is that the error dialog suddenly gets focus so even though we think we're still dragging the main one, we in fact drag the dialog instead.

Could be synaptic performing a focus()/present() after some timeout... it seems to happen multiple times once the error dialog is shown.

Moving the issue towards mintinstall since it's not a BETA blocker.

[NintendoManiac64]

I just discovered what seems to effectively be the exact same issue but with the create new file/rename file dialog window instead (the mouse dragging action on the background window is performed in the exact same manner and location however).

But the thing is that, it not just occurred on Mint 21 Xfce beta but even Manjaro 21.3.5 Xfce, and this clearly isn't just an Xfce bug though since, as I explained above, it even occurs on Cinnamon using an error dialog window...

I'm not really sure what to make of this - I may be good at finding bugs but I can't code worth a darn (hardware is actually my area of expertise).

(screenshot is from a live session of Manjaro 21.3.5 Xfce)

[mtwebster]

This seems like a sort of side-effect of the 'attach modal dialogs to the parent window' feature present in most window managers, and the behavior enforced with these dialogs - they don't allow the parent window to be focused while they're up - any attempt to focus the parent changes focus to the popup, including when attempting to 'grab' the window.

If you enable the 'attach modal dialogs..' feature (in cinnamon, Window settings, Behavior), you can see this same behavior at work, but it is more appropriate in that case.

I'm not sure how to address this - the user should be able to move the parent window no matter what kind it is or what the situation, and they can for non-client-decorate windows, but trying to do something about this in other cases (without breaking other things) may be difficult.

On the other hand, this isn't really that huge an issue - modal dialogs are meant to be addressed and dismissed (the presence of the 'attach modal dialogs' feature sort of reinforces this). In the original example, there's really no reason to need to refer to the mintinstall window in order to understand what the popup is telling you. If you're meant to deal with things on both windows at the same time, the popup window usually won't be 'modal', and not force focus in this manner.

[github-actions]

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[NintendoManiac64]

Seems to have been fixed at some point as even Mint Xfce 21.3 (not a typo) isn't exhibiting it.