[Pidgin] #7693: Always on top buddy list hides child dialogs

[Pidgin]

#7693: Always on top buddy list hides child dialogs
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 Reporter:  Daniel Beardsmore  |           Owner:  datallah       
     Type:  defect             |          Status:  new            
Milestone:                     |       Component:  winpidgin (gtk)
  Version:  2.5.2              |      Resolution:                 
 Keywords:                     |   Launchpad_bug:                 
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Comment(by deryni):

 *Dialogs* modal-to or parented-to an always-on-top window should be
 always-on-top, whether that is the job of the widgeting toolkit or the
 windowing environment is not somehintg I have an opinion on at the moment
 (though I think I would lean to putting the onus on the windowing
 environment, since it would be perfectly reasonable not to require dialogs
 to stay in front of their parents). All other windows spawned from that
 window should act as whatever type of window they are.

 Which dialog boxes in pidgin do you think should be modal which aren't?

 pidgin avoids modal dialogs when the dialog interaction really shouldn't
 prevent interaction with the rest of pidgin, most applications horribly
 overuse and abuse modal dialogs. That being said, yes I would hope that
 Windows would automatically keep dialogs above their parents whether they
 are modal or not (and in fact Windows does seem to do this, see the New
 Instant Message dialog as an example, it is non-modal and is kept on top
 of the buddy list at least when the buddy list is not set to always-on-
 top). That it doesn't work when the buddy list is set to always-on-top
 indicates that something in pidgin is broken/suboptimal (unlikely),
 something in GTK+ is broken/suboptimal (more likely), or that GTK+ and
 Windows disagree on whose job it is to handle this case (most likely).

 Normal windows spawning behind other normal windows is a perfectly fine
 window management decision, on Windows it just happens to not be one I
 think they ever intentionally choose so the fact that it happens is likely
 a bug.

 pidgin doesn't, to the best of my knowledge, center dialog boxes itself
 (that is  I bleieve this is something that either GTK+ or Windows is doing
 for us).

 Can we get a clarification of what issue (exactly) this ticket is
 reporting? There have been a number of related discussions and I'm not at
 all sure what the complaint is at this point.

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Ticket URL: <http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/7693#comment:10>
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