Tool confirmation should not steal app focus

[isidorn]

If VS Code is not in focus - now tool confirmation puts the app in focus.
This is too aggressive imho - and users are complaining (saw on reddit).

imho chat.focusWindowOnConfirmation should be a 3-state string. Two values as now, and the new one that is the default - make window blink. We do the same when the breakpoint is hit. You can take a look at that code https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/blob/main/src/vs/workbench/contrib/debug/browser/debugSession.ts#L1377

fyi @roblourens

[connor4312]

Two values as now, and the new one that is the default - make window blink. We do the same when the breakpoint is hit

The debug code you linked is the same boolean and we use the same code for tools. Afaik the blink versus foreground is different behavior of the same API on macOS versus Windows

[isidorn]

@deepak1556 might know if there is some better Electron API.

Maybe this is feature work to use macOS native notifications instead of stealing focus

cc @joaomoreno

[deepak1556]

Yes this is specific behavior to macOS, if the focus api on the nativehost service is called with force: true then on macOS we will force activate the app, underneath the runtime uses activateIgnoringOtherApps:YES. When force: false then the runtime will call with activateIgnoringOtherApps:NO which will also activate the app but only if no other application was active.

[isidorn]

I discussed this with @bpasero and we think we can improve the experience by exposing the "jump" API from electron - that will make the app jump in the toolbar. In addition to that, we should play a sound. I created this one #248200

The goal is to have two tasteful way of letting the user know agent needs attention (without stealing focus that can be destructive)

[deepak1556]

we think we can improve the experience by exposing the "jump" API from electron

Is this the api you are referring to https://github.com/electron/electron/blob/main/docs/api/dock.md#dockbouncetype-macos

[isidorn]

Yes!

[connor4312]

I'll get that wired in 🤓

[bpasero]

So to clarify, we use that API on all OS or only macOS? We need to test how it surfaces I guess. An alternative is to use the badge API for putting a badge over the dock icon.

[connor4312]

With force: true, Windows' focus API will only pulse the app in the taskbar. I was thinking of making the option something like { force?: boolean; notify?: boolean }, where

• force: true forces focus on macOS and pulses in Windows -- no changes from today. If they ever actually resolve your old Windows 10: Window is not put to front on focus() electron/electron#2867 then we can unify this behavior
• notify: true bounces on macOS and pulses on Windows -- newly using the dock API on macOS
• false/false -- no change

alternately we do something like { inBackground: 'bringToFront' | 'notify' | 'none' } which is a little more explicit