Corner case: Control panel modal dialog gets restricted to activity view or obscured

[m_anish]

I just encountered a interesting corner case which results in the control panel modal dialog being restricted to the activity view

Testcase

• Open a heavy activity like record which takes some time, or use a slow computer ;-)

• While the activity is opening, quickly switch to home view (F3) and open the control panel.

Observations: dx3, sugar-jhbuild/0.92

(The usual control panel modal dialog opens)

(The activity launches in the background behind the modal dialog)

• While this is happening, the user can switch between different views (neighborhood, friend, home) and the control panel modal dialog is no longer visible there.

Observations: dx2, sweets/0.88

(The usual control panel modal dialog opens)

(The activity launches and obscures the control panel modal dialog)

• Closing the activity reveals the Control Panel modal dialog again

OR

• The user can try switching to different views where the dialog is no longer visible.

Note:

• I do not see any exception/traceback in shell.log which could have been caused by this.
• Someone needs to test this on a 0.84 if possible. I don't have one close-by right now

[m_anish]

Screenshot of CP modal panel in front of record activity. Dextrose-3, sugar-0.92.x

[sascha_silbe]

I intended to mark this as a dupe of another ticket, but apparently the described behaviour hasn't been documented yet. Related issues are #1138, #2576 and #453.

Modal dialogs are hard to get right - even more so if they're global (application-modal isn't much easier, but the effects are limited to a single application / activity). We need to try harder to avoid them.

[walter]

Also related to #4601

[dnarvaez]

Seems like a dup of #4601.