ACAD 2017 Stealing Focus (please make it STOP!)

[Anonymous]

Count me in as frustrated & annoyed at the way AutoCAD steals focus while opening multiple drawings.

I have a beefy machine with 3 moniteors, so I multi-task like crazy. I often need to open up several drawings in one window while continuing to work in another application. This takes a while, and each time another drawing is opened, Autocad steals the window focus. This often happens while I'm typing, which slows down my work in the other application and causes AutoCAD to stop opening the set of drawings. I have to switch to the Autocad window, delete the text and then go back to my other application. This is a real pain, and very poor practice by the developers. At the very least, they could make this a system variable that could be turned off.

Anyway.. enough of my soapbox. I've found a registry setting that supposedly fixes this. 'ForegroundLockTimeout'.. has anyone else tried this? Are there other side effects that I should be aware of before attempting this setting?

[hencoop]

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@Anonymous wrote:

"The reason why I quit publishing in the background since a long time ago is because sometimes with larger publish jobs, AutoCAD would often run into an issue and close out unexpectedly.  When AutoCAD closes out unexpectedly during publish, it doesn't know..."

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That is EXACTLY the reason I NEVER use background publishing.  This focus stealing issue is a BIG problem.  I tend to think that "I've been dealing with it for so long, I am just used to it and limit my computer activity at those times." as stated in a reply is NOT a good solution to this problem.  Autodesk's unnecessary limiting of computer activity for so long (since about forever) is the crux of this matter and the specific point that Autodesk MUST address.

Very bad form Autodesk.

[hencoop]

Hi John,

I've used that Registry hack before on my old workstation.  It does serve to prevent focus stealing by AutoCAD but it also prevents all other applications from taking focus when they should.  I cannot think of a specific example.  I just remember noticing that applications did not take focus when they should and I had to direct focus to them.

[Anonymous]

omg please someone mention one more time, to do the batch plot in the background...

(No offense guys, I'm sure you all work very hard, but I gotta get this out, so here's my little rant)

This thing is going to be taking a good long while to simply print a few dozen pages.  Sure, we don't mind BSing with the other MEs or shop guys about cars and such, but imagine trying to type in another application, and every 4-5 seconds the focus is stolen away - to nothing, there is nothing I can see that even gets the focus - and you're just typing into thin air about halfway through every other word or so.  Completely, utterly pointless.  

Not to mention, whatever invisible program does happen to steal focus, what happens if I just happen to be pressing some buttons or something that'll mess it up?

Meanwhile, with ANY other document, I can simply shift-click or ctrl-click as many files as I want right in windows explorer, right-click, and hit Print.  Done.  Quick, too.  It shouldn't, under ANY circumstances, take half an hour to print a few dozen sheets.  Let alone bogart the use of my entire machine while doing it "in the background".  

Plotting?  Does anybody actually use a plotter, anymore??  Everybody simply prints on 11x17.  Wake up, AutoDesk!!

[Anonymous]

This is STILL a big issue. Autocad makes the computer unusable if its opening a long list of drawings or printing background or foreground. Autocad really needs to fix this. Its SUPER annoying and there is no reason for Autocad to be making calls for focus all the time.

[RobDraw]

Just some food for thought.

Maybe the question is actually why does it take so long for the publish to complete. If it were fast enough, stealing focus wouldn't be much of an issue. If the hardware/firmware isn't fast enough to handle the output for any of a number of reasons, it could actually hinder AutoCAD's output. 

[hencoop]

It is not reasonable to expect AutoCAD to publish fast enough that stealing focus would not be a problem... unless you only publish a few sheets at a time.  Some folks publish many sheets at a time.  My high count is about 120 at one time.  More recently it has been about 70 sheets or so.

Stealing focus is apparently necessary for AutoCAD to be able to successfully publish.  Either that is the case and the programmers opted to interfere with users rather than do their due diligence... or, the conclusion must only get worse!

In any case, Autodesk's idea of the meaning of the word "background" is nowhere near what any reasonable person would understand.

[RobDraw]

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@hencoopwrote:

It is not reasonable to expect AutoCAD to publish fast enough that stealing focus would not be a problem... 

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Why not? 

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@hencoopwrote:

Some folks publish many sheets at a time.  My high count is about 120 at one time.  More recently it has been about 70 sheets or so.

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My average project used to be about 70 sheets with many much bigger than that. Have you ever noticed that the output speed of the job can vary depending on the plotter/printer?

[hencoop]

Each plot, with its accompanying stealing of focus, will take a fixed amount of time which will never be zero.  Rendering the content of the drawing is the process that requires time.  More content requires more time.  The best time to plot I’ve seen on a much better than average workstation is about 10-15 seconds for a self contained detail drawing composing a single sheet having no xreferences.

That time is a reasonable amount of time for a single plot, but that condition is not the typical condition and often more than one sheet is plotted. 

Many drawings are composed of views of 20-30 Mb of attached xreferences and sometimes several of them. It is unreasonable to expect plot times of 10-15 seconds per sheet when that much data is being processed using a workstation of the power typically in use today.  It is also unreasonable to expect that Autodesk could revise its plotting code to reduce the time to plot these beasts to just a few seconds.

Just 20 sheets at plot speeds of 10-15 seconds per will prevent a user from doing anything else on his machine for 3:20 to 4:40 minutes because of the incessant stealing of focus.  120 sheets will make the machine useless for any other task for 20-30 minutes at these plot times. To limit the interruption caused by focus stealing to just two minutes would require a one second plot time for all 120 sheets.  I think it is unreasonable to expect that under any scenario.

Being interrupted so that you must manually refocus on another application every 10-30 seconds by a "background" plot/publish process is completely unreasonable.  To be expected to just put up with it is unreasonable.

It is possible to hack the registry so that Autodesk CANNOT steal focus at all; however, the down side is that then NOTHING can take focus when it actually should.  I've done it.  Both situations are very frustrating.

[Anonymous]

Why does Autocad do this? Tons of other programs I have can be left to do work without stealing focus every so often. Its very bad.

Autocad representative, Do you have any comment?

-Daniel

[john.vellek]

Hi @Anonymous,

Have you verified that the Content service is running properly in the background?  You might have to check for some SQL patches to  remedy this condition.

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question.

[hencoop]

John,

My content service is working well.  This afternoon's Publish using Page Setup Override from my Sheet Set Manager for 33 sheets was long and VERY frustrating on my NEW Civil 3D installation.  I tried taking care of some email but could not type a full word before I had to reacquire focus at times.

THIS HAS GOT TO BE FIXED!!!

[hencoop]

P.S. I do not use background processing for plotting or publishing.  To be very clear, THOSE settings for "background" are to TRY to make it in the background of AutoCAD and obviously NOT everything running in Windows.  When I did try those settings the process seemed to stay in the background of everything but would NEVER complete... let alone complete successfully.  I have very little experience with background plotting as my very little experience was a complete failure to produce ANY usable product and I DO NOT keep doing things that don't work (well, most of the time).

I can think of ABSOLUTELY NO OTHER commercially available professional software that does NOT play and work well with others in regard to taking stealing focus by and for itself other than AutoCAD!

BAD FORM... VERY VERY BAD FORM, AUTODESK!!!

[Anonymous]

I have looked for years to find a way to get Win7 to stop this on many programs and the reg edit ForegroundLockTimeout = DEC 100000 works.  Thanks Mike. I owe you a beer.

[hencoop]

It is still a problem when using "plot in background" but the bigger problem is that AutoCAD simply cannot complete a publish job if I choose that option, at least not for me.  Also, not selecting "plot in background" should not be seen as somehow selecting an unseen "Plot priority and focus is on top of everything in windows" button:

[RobDraw]

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@hencoop wrote:

It is still a problem when using "plot in background" but the bigger problem is that AutoCAD simply cannot complete a publish job if I choose that option, at least not for me.  Also, not selecting "plot in background" should not be seen as somehow selecting an unseen "Plot priority and focus is on top of everything in windows" button:

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You're still trying to multitask on your computer while plotting?

[hans.verbeekN2CPE]

It's been years and Autocad still steals focus for no reason. None of the solutions here work and if you're typing while it steals focus Autocad is usually doomed and can only be saved by killing it completely and starting it again.

[RobDraw]

Thanks for rehashing this mostly useless thread and reiterating the issue. There are several solutions here that work. It's kind of hard to weed through the quagmire of replies with no substance but there are viable solutions here. Mine is guaranteed to work.

If none of these solutions work for you, I would suggest starting your own thread instead of jumping on this bandwagon to nowhere.

[hans.verbeekN2CPE]

I don't know which guaranteed solution you are talking about but it is not in this thread.
As for starting a separate thread, that would mean I'd have to refer to this thread anyway, if only to point out that this is an old issue that the developers still haven't bothered to fix. For five years!
TBH it is an issue that Microsoft should fix, no apps should steal focus unless it requires immediate attention (just color the taskbar item and blink it), but Autocad is especially annoying in this. It regularly steals focus without even being done calculating, which means any keypress will cause mayhem.

[RobDraw]

It's definitely in this thread. Sorry you missed it. You may continue to add more useless dribble if you'd like.

[hencoop]

@RobDraw It appears that you are having a bad day.  If so, I'm sorry about that.  I must admit that your solution, "just don't do anything else while you are publishing", actually prevents all of the the problems mentioned in all of the "useless dribble" in this thread... except the problem that you cannot do anything else while you are publishing.  I hope whatever personal or other issue that sent you off on the latest post is resolved and you are back to your old self soon.  I know you are better than your response to @hans.verbeekN2CPE .  You have amply demonstrated that fact over the years.