Event when app is becoming active

[ialexryan]

Steps to reproduce:

• hide or close all windows of your app.
• switch away from your app
• Cmd+Tab back to your app

Issue: the "activate-with-no-open-windows" event is only triggered if I return to the app by clicking on the dock icon, not by Cmd+Tab'ing.

[ialexryan]

This looks like it might be relevant: http://cocoadev.com/DifferentTypesOfAppActivation

[zcbenz]

This is expected since the term "activate" on OS X means the application is activated by clicking on the dock icon, what you want should be a new "active" or "focus" event that emitted when application is becoming active by Cmd+Tab or other means.

[zcbenz]

This has been fixed by adding the activate event.

[ialexryan]

@zcbenz Wait, sorry - how does that fix it? I just checked, and the activate event is not called when I Cmd+Tab to my application. Please reopen the issue.

[loki951753]

I just checked, and the activate event is not called when I Cmd+Tab to my application.

same problem as @ialexryan

[moonwave99]

Had same problem, just checked what Atom does.

[ialexryan]

Can this be reopened? My understanding is that my original issue still stands, although I'm no longer in a position to conveniently verify this with the latest Electron build.

[akashnimare]

@ialexryan @moonwave99 @loki951753 It's there on latest build. Btw no application provide this feature. This issue exists even on telegram app (built on objective c). Same goes with chrome. So I guess this is standard behaviour (activate app only on click not on cmd+tab).

Temporary fix - Start tabbing with Cmd-Tab until you get to the application you want to switch to, then press and hold Option before releasing Cmd-Tab. More info
http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/29705/cmdtab-switches-to-the-correct-space-but-doesnt-bring-app-up-to-front

[chriswhong]

Hello, for anyone who stumbles across this, I was also seeing that the activate event only fired when switching back to my app by clicking on the dock, and did not fire when using Cmd-Tab.

I wanted my electron to open its only window when the user brings the app back to the foreground. I noticed that github desktop uses this approach, and it worked for me. You have to use Menu.sendActionToFirstResponder:

      mainWindow.on('close', (e) => {
        if (!forceQuit) {
          e.preventDefault()
          Menu.sendActionToFirstResponder('hide:')
        }
      })

Where forceQuit is true if they are actually quitting the app, not just closing the window.

[emcmanus]

As explained above, the activate event works correctly. You're not supposed to "launch" applications from the app switcher.

There are two ways to fix the UX.

1. Exit the process when all windows are closed:

app.on('window-all-closed', () => {
  app.quit()
});

2. Or, if you'd like to keep the main thread running, even though no windows are visible:

// Hide our icon from the MacOS app switcher when there is no window to show.
app.on('browser-window-created', () => {
  app.dock.show(); // Show in app switcher
});
app.on('window-all-closed', () => {
  app.dock.hide(); // Hide from app switcher
});
app.on('activate', () => {
  // User has clicked the dock icon. Do whatever you need to, to create and/or show your main window.
});