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> Things popping up This is one of my biggest frustrations with modern GUI computing. It's especially bad with Windows and Office, but it happens on iOS and ma

> Things popping up This is one of my biggest frustrations with modern GUI computing. It's especially bad with Windows and Office, but it happens on iOS and macOS too to an extent. Even though I've had Office installed for weeks I still get a "look over here at this new button!" pop-up while I'm in the middle of some Excel task. Pop-up here, pop-up there. It's insane the number of little bubbles and pop-ups and noise we experience in modern computing.

fragmede 2y ago
Omfg I do not need national political news shoved into my face in on the left side of my taskbar while I'm trying to focus on work, thank you Microsoft, k thx bye!
- booleandilemma 2y ago
  Yeah I just wanted to check the weather...
- imgabe 2y ago
  You can turn that off, it’s the first thing I do on Windows. I agree you shouldn’t have to though.
- netsharc 2y ago
  Google Android phones do so freaking much of this too. Open the Google app (or swipe left from the home screen on the Pixel Launcher), gone are the days where it's a copy of their original homepage and is just a search bar, now it has news... Go to the search bar, and it shows trending searches. Die in a tucking fire!
  - red_trumpet 2y ago
    You can definitely disable the "swipe left" thing on the launcher.
    - oefnak 2y ago
      Yea, but you can't make it a home screen like when you swipe right.
askvictor 2y ago
Even on gnome, I regularly have applications stealing focus when they decide they're the most important thing. As well as being really annoying, it's a security risk if an application steals focus while you're typing your password or otp key
- accrual 2y ago
  > if an application steals focus while you're typing your password Definitely. Bitwarden does this ironically. It will pop-up "UPDATE AVAILABLE!" half way through typing a passphrase. Why not suppress the pop-up if the user is typing, or make it non-modal? Every few days I am interrupted just trying to unlock a vault.
- boudin 2y ago
  Did you install an extension for that ? By default Gnome prevents this and shows a notification instead. It's extensions like Steal my focus that allows focus stealing
  - askvictor 2y ago
    I'm using PopOS, so there's a chance that it's related to that, but no I haven't. And I've tried the gsetting that supposedly helps prevent it. I've only ever seen Zoom and VSCode do this; I get the feeling that they don't quite follow the same conventions that 'native' Linux applications use, or use some trickery (as they see themselves as the most important thing on your computer).
    - herbst 2y ago
      I never had anything steal the focus and was highly confused to read gnome here. I highly suspect PopOS is doing something weird theire. No matter how bad vscode is and integrates that never happened to me.
overgard 2y ago
Apple has kind of made things worse in the recent macOS, where my phone's notifications show up on the desktop now. Like, man, I was already drowning in them before anyway, I don't want them on two screens now.
- LoganDark 2y ago
  You probably already know this if it was bothering you, but just in case: System Settings -> Notifications -> toggle off "Allow notifications from iPhone".
  - m463 2y ago
    I'm reminded of the aircraft crash investigations where the pilots would have a frequent warning, learn to ignore it, then miss the important one. unnecessary notifications hurt us all. Wonder how many people have turned off the emergency/amber alerts because of non-critical use of the system?
    - LoganDark 2y ago
      > Wonder how many people have turned off the emergency/amber alerts because of non-critical use of the system? I turned them off because I don't care about any of the things they consider critical.
  - ascagnel_ 2y ago
    I would also argue, regardless of what mobile OS you're on, quieting, delaying, or disabling notifications on a regular basis (and taking stock of what you let through) is prudent.
    - m463 2y ago
      do you turn off amber alerts? emergency alerts?
    - LoganDark 2y ago
      I'm always shocked whenever I see someone having hundreds or even thousands of unread notifications. It pains me to see that instead of controlling their feed to only what interests them, they've just let everything pile up forever, completely unread. For example, on Discord, I sometimes see people with unreads for every server, and dozens to hundreds of completely unread DMs, just because they don't know that you can turn notifications off for the stuff you don't care about. Instead of doing that they just learned to ignore everything, leading to a disorganized mess. I'm somewhat familiar with what typically leads to this (usually something like ADHD), but when you let it go for so many years it's such a big task to fix it that the fixing never happens and you're just kind of screwed for eternity. In Discord, I have no unread servers and no unread DMs, despite being at the server limit. This is because all my servers are completely silenced and all my DMs are read immediately. My only unread email is one I marked as such because I still plan to reply to it soon. I have the attention for every single notification because I aggressively optimize the notifications I receive to the point where they all are typically things I care about. Back in the day I would instantly report every email to SpamCop, typically in under one minute, but I eventually stopped doing that because there's no point. I simultaneously do and don't understand people who just submit to a flood of irrelevant garbage. Control it!!
mrob 2y ago
The worst example of things popping up I've seen is Youtube's sponsored content warnings. These immediately appear above the active click target (video thumbnail) when you move your mouse over it, hijacking the expected action there. If you click things as a single action like every skilled mouse user does (rather than pointing and then clicking as two separate actions), it's physically impossible to react in time to avoid clicking them. And because only a part of the click target gets hijacked it's too inconsistent to learn to avoid it by intuition. I've clicked them accidentally several times and every time it's been disturbing because it feels like some serious and unexpected error.

fragmede 2y ago

Omfg I do not need national political news shoved into my face in on the left side of my taskbar while I'm trying to focus on work, thank you Microsoft, k thx bye!

booleandilemma 2y ago
Yeah I just wanted to check the weather...
imgabe 2y ago
You can turn that off, it’s the first thing I do on Windows. I agree you shouldn’t have to though.
netsharc 2y ago
Google Android phones do so freaking much of this too. Open the Google app (or swipe left from the home screen on the Pixel Launcher), gone are the days where it's a copy of their original homepage and is just a search bar, now it has news... Go to the search bar, and it shows trending searches. Die in a tucking fire!
- red_trumpet 2y ago
  You can definitely disable the "swipe left" thing on the launcher.
  - oefnak 2y ago
    Yea, but you can't make it a home screen like when you swipe right.

askvictor 2y ago

Even on gnome, I regularly have applications stealing focus when they decide they're the most important thing. As well as being really annoying, it's a security risk if an application steals focus while you're typing your password or otp key

accrual 2y ago
> if an application steals focus while you're typing your password Definitely. Bitwarden does this ironically. It will pop-up "UPDATE AVAILABLE!" half way through typing a passphrase. Why not suppress the pop-up if the user is typing, or make it non-modal? Every few days I am interrupted just trying to unlock a vault.
boudin 2y ago
Did you install an extension for that ? By default Gnome prevents this and shows a notification instead. It's extensions like Steal my focus that allows focus stealing
- askvictor 2y ago
  I'm using PopOS, so there's a chance that it's related to that, but no I haven't. And I've tried the gsetting that supposedly helps prevent it. I've only ever seen Zoom and VSCode do this; I get the feeling that they don't quite follow the same conventions that 'native' Linux applications use, or use some trickery (as they see themselves as the most important thing on your computer).
  - herbst 2y ago
    I never had anything steal the focus and was highly confused to read gnome here. I highly suspect PopOS is doing something weird theire. No matter how bad vscode is and integrates that never happened to me.

overgard 2y ago

Apple has kind of made things worse in the recent macOS, where my phone's notifications show up on the desktop now. Like, man, I was already drowning in them before anyway, I don't want them on two screens now.

LoganDark 2y ago
You probably already know this if it was bothering you, but just in case: System Settings -> Notifications -> toggle off "Allow notifications from iPhone".
- m463 2y ago
  I'm reminded of the aircraft crash investigations where the pilots would have a frequent warning, learn to ignore it, then miss the important one. unnecessary notifications hurt us all. Wonder how many people have turned off the emergency/amber alerts because of non-critical use of the system?
  - LoganDark 2y ago
    > Wonder how many people have turned off the emergency/amber alerts because of non-critical use of the system? I turned them off because I don't care about any of the things they consider critical.
- ascagnel_ 2y ago
  I would also argue, regardless of what mobile OS you're on, quieting, delaying, or disabling notifications on a regular basis (and taking stock of what you let through) is prudent.
  - m463 2y ago
    do you turn off amber alerts? emergency alerts?
  - LoganDark 2y ago
    I'm always shocked whenever I see someone having hundreds or even thousands of unread notifications. It pains me to see that instead of controlling their feed to only what interests them, they've just let everything pile up forever, completely unread. For example, on Discord, I sometimes see people with unreads for every server, and dozens to hundreds of completely unread DMs, just because they don't know that you can turn notifications off for the stuff you don't care about. Instead of doing that they just learned to ignore everything, leading to a disorganized mess. I'm somewhat familiar with what typically leads to this (usually something like ADHD), but when you let it go for so many years it's such a big task to fix it that the fixing never happens and you're just kind of screwed for eternity. In Discord, I have no unread servers and no unread DMs, despite being at the server limit. This is because all my servers are completely silenced and all my DMs are read immediately. My only unread email is one I marked as such because I still plan to reply to it soon. I have the attention for every single notification because I aggressively optimize the notifications I receive to the point where they all are typically things I care about. Back in the day I would instantly report every email to SpamCop, typically in under one minute, but I eventually stopped doing that because there's no point. I simultaneously do and don't understand people who just submit to a flood of irrelevant garbage. Control it!!

mrob 2y ago

The worst example of things popping up I've seen is Youtube's sponsored content warnings. These immediately appear above the active click target (video thumbnail) when you move your mouse over it, hijacking the expected action there. If you click things as a single action like every skilled mouse user does (rather than pointing and then clicking as two separate actions), it's physically impossible to react in time to avoid clicking them. And because only a part of the click target gets hijacked it's too inconsistent to learn to avoid it by intuition. I've clicked them accidentally several times and every time it's been disturbing because it feels like some serious and unexpected error.