Description of Problem:

Sometimes, you want to open a slow-to-start
application (Evolution, GIMP or OpenOffice for
example). So, what you do is click on its icon (on
the desktop or on the panel), switch to another
app and work until the desired app has been fully
loaded.

The problem is that when the desired app finally
pops up, you lose the focus. And if you were, for
example, typing a text in Abiword, you actually
end up typing text in Evolution or OpenOffice.
That can be a big problem if you were typing your
root password in a terminal when OOO finally went
up...

A solution to this problem is to simply do the
following:

When you launch an app (by clicking on its icon on
the panel or on the desktop), the focus goes to
the panel or the desktop.
When the app window appears, if the focus hasn't
changed in the meantime, put the focus to the new
app window (so, from the panel/desktop to the new
app).
If, however, the focus has gone from the
panel/desktop at least once since the icon was
clicked, don't change the focus when the app
appears. Instead, make the task-list entry to
blink so that the user notices that the app has
been loaded.