metacity doesn't honor application's raise window call with sloppy focus

[ull]

Binary package hint: metacity

1) Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty; uname: 2.6.28.9-preempt #1 SMP PREEMPT (homebrew kernel)
2) apt-cache policy metacity
     metacity:
       Installed: 1:2.25.144-0ubuntu2
       Candidate: 1:2.25.144-0ubuntu2
       xorg.conf:
       Section "Extensions"
           Option "Composite" "False"
       EndSection

3) Windows which belong to an application and are behind the main application window should be brought to the front of the window stack when a user uses the application menu to call the window.
4) When using sloppy focus in Metacity (/apps/metacity/focus_mode = sloppy in gconf-editor), if an application gets behind another window from that same application and if the user accesses the window via some method provided by the application (ie. through menu) - the window which is behind gets focus but does _not_ come to the front of the window stack (or in other words does not get raised). Also, in my case, compositing managers are out of question since I use 3D graphics OpenGL software which does not play well with compositing managers at all.

To reproduce one could do the following:
- launch Firefox
- click Edit>Preferences
- click Tools>Error Console
- click Edit>Preferences
You will notice that the Preferences window gets focused but stays behind the Error Console window.
This results in user having to dig the window either from the panel windows list or click on the window border/title bar in order to raise it. Within a production environment this is a show-stopping bug that forces a user to invest time in researching alternative window managers instead of having a simple checkbox to turn this "focus stealing prevention" on or off.
I realise the author of Metacity has probably chosen to _not_ leave an option to the user but lock it down instead. However I believe Ubuntu should patch Metacity in order to expose this option for production users so that they don't have to waste time on installing, setting up and using a non-default window manager.

[sander (s-devrieze)]

This bug will likely affect future releases of Coccinella: https://bugs.launchpad.net/coccinella/+bug/179936/comments/8

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. A new version of Metacity is available in both Lucid and Maverick and we are wondering if this is still reproducible in any of those versions, May you please test and give us of feedback about it? Thanks in advance.

[sander (s-devrieze)]

Ubuntu 13.04 does not seem to be affected by this bug. I think this one can be closed.