focus stealing

A very annoying feature in windows where an application foribly brings itself to the front (aka steals the focus). Can also be when you're filling out a form on a website and what part of it you've selected to enter text into suddenly changes.

A common side effect of this is when you're typing a message to someone in a messenger program and another contact messages you. In some programs, it steals the focus and half of what you were typing to the first person appears in the second persons window.

Another common side effect is when you're in a game and (as an example) you're anti virus program suddenly pops up a message saying you need to update your definitions. It's also known to happen with other programs that use pop up messages to inform you of updates.

It's also known to happen when you're surfing a page and a pop-up advertisment brings itself to the front, sometimes causing someone to accidently click on it instead of on the page they intended.

Finally, another form of focus stealing can be when you're filling out a webform and (for example) are filling out your name and suddenly the cursor moves to the e-mail field without any input from you.

A gamer is gaming when suddenly the screen goes black and he find himself on the desktop looking at a 'update this software please' pop-up.

Gamer: Damn focus stealing!

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focus stealing

One of the primary symptoms of Disobedient Computer Syndrome.

DCS Symptom #2:

2. At least one other task will pop up in front of the application the user is accessing, for the purpose of intercepting the user's keystrokes and mouse clicks while the user is assigning the desired task.

What is it with application programmers that makes them think I want some program running in the background to steal focus every time it completes a subtask? If I wanted to micromanage a task, I'd use a command prompt!

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