Application windows do not become active when started via keyboard shortcuts

[Michael Satke]

I used to start Gnome-calculator and Thunderbird via my keyboard short cuts. This used to work very well andd handy, for my keyboard has some extra keys for those purposes.

Now I can still start the desired applications, but I have to do an extra click (or alt-tab) on their window to get them active. This ist particularly annoying and unhandy for the calculator. I tested this contra-productive behaviour on thunderbird and on gnome-calculator.

This bug seems to have occured about May 2014, and is active in 14.04 (my desktop computer) and 13.10 (my laptop computer).

I consider this a very small bug, and so i hope this is really easy to fix.

Thank you in advance, Michael

Ubuntu 14.04 AMD 64 Bit

michael@desktop-pc:~$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
Release: 14.04
michael@desktop-pc:~$ apt-cache policy unity
unity:
  Installiert: 7.2.0+14.04.20140423-0ubuntu1.2
  Installationskandidat: 7.2.1+14.04.20140513-0ubuntu2
  Versionstabelle:
     7.2.1+14.04.20140513-0ubuntu2 0
        500 http://at.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty-updates/main amd64 Packages
 *** 7.2.0+14.04.20140423-0ubuntu1.2 0
        500 http://at.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty-security/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     7.2.0+14.04.20140416-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://at.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/main amd64 Packages

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: unity 7.2.0+14.04.20140423-0ubuntu1.2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-30.55-generic 3.13.11.2
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-30-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3
Architecture: amd64
CompizPlugins: [core,composite,opengl,compiztoolbox,decor,snap,grid,place,imgpng,vpswitch,resize,gnomecompat,mousepoll,move,session,regex,unitymtgrabhandles,animation,wall,fade,expo,scale,ezoom,workarounds,unityshell]
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Wed Jul 9 15:19:58 2014
SourcePackage: unity
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to trusty on 2014-04-29 (71 days ago)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Eric Lambart (ubuntu-nomeaning)]

I learned from here:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/457857/ubuntu-14-04-calculator-does-not-get-focus-when-opened-from-keyboard-shortcut

...that the problem seems to only occur with Unity's built-in "Launchers" (System Settings->Keyboard->Shortcuts->Launchers).

Following the suggested answer on AU, I disabled my key-combo for the "Launch calculator" shortcut, and added a Custom Shortcut to gnome-calculator. Now it works as expected!

What's odd is that the "Launch terminal" built-in Launcher (mapped to Super+T) works fine. It always comes to the foreground and is focused.

[Michael Satke (n9447354)]

Yee haw, I don't know how this problem was solved after all, but after updating to 15.04 all applications started through keyboard shortcuts become active (they appear in the foreground with keyboard focus).

E. g. keyboard focus is in the input field when gnome-calculator is started. To whom it may concern, but thank you very very much! Everything works fine now again. Michael

[Alex Burdu (alex.burdu)]

This bug is not invalid. I am still experiencing it on Ubuntu 14.04 on 2 laptops.

[Alex Baggott (alex-baggott)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug. We have tried to recreate this on the latest release of Ubuntu and cannot reproduce it. This bug is being marked as Invalid. If you believe the problem to still exist in the latest version of Ubuntu please comment on why that is the case and change the bug status to NEW.

[Alex Burdu (alex.burdu)]

Hi Alex,

I am still having this bug both on my home laptop and my work laptop. Both have the latest update on Ubuntu 14.06x64.