OpenOffice is started in background if Compiz and quickstarter is used

[unggnu]

Binary package hint: compiz

If the OpenOffice quickstarter is enabled Compiz puts all new OpenOffice opening of documents instances to background (behind Nautilus) so it manually have to be activated from panel. This is very confusing especially for new users. This doesn't happen if Metacity is used or quickstarter disabled.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Fri Aug 22 19:24:26 2008
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.04
Package: openoffice.org-core 1:2.4.1-1ubuntu2
PackageArchitecture: i386
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=/usr/lib/openoffice/program:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
 LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: openoffice.org
Uname: Linux 2.6.24-19-generic i686

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering is this still an issue for you? Could you try to reproduce the same with Ubuntu 9.04? Thanks in advance.

[mycl (415fox)]

I can second this one using Openoffice 3, Ibex and Compiz.

You must be running the openoffice quickstarter which you turn on by going to Tools->Options->Openoffice.Org->Memory->Enable Systray quickstarter

You must also be running Compiz. If you do a "metacity --replace" then the effect goes away.

After that if you open a document using the File Browser or the command line (soffice file.odt&) then the document window will open behind the File Browser or terminal window that you used to start it.

[mycl (415fox)]

This behavior is fixed if you go into the Compiz Settings Manager and change General Options->Focus & Raise Behavior->Focus Prevention Level from "Low" to "Off".

Question: What is Focus Prevention for and is there any disadvantage to having it off by default?

[mycl (415fox)]

A quick google search shows that a lot of different little problems are solved by turning off Focus Prevention. But I can't find one good reason why you would want this functionality.

Question: Should the default setting be Off in Jaunty?

[unggnu (unggnu)]

I can confirm the workaround but there have to be some penalties otherwise it would be activated per default. It doesn't seem to be fixed in jaunty.

[Travis Watkins (amaranth)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. The issue that you reported is one that should be reproducible with the live environment of the Desktop CD of the development release - Karmic Koala. It would help us greatly if you could test with it so we can work on getting it fixed in the next release of Ubuntu. You can find out more about the development release at http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/. Thanks again and we appreciate your help.

When running `ooffice -quickstart -nologo -nodefault &` in karmic then opening a .doc file from nautilus OOo Writer opens on top of nautilus and has focus just like it should.

[unggnu (unggnu)]

It seems to be fixed in current Karmic, at least after a short test.

[Travis Watkins (amaranth)]

Alright, thanks for the update.