Anybody finding desktop apps partially load intermittently - macos webview

[Blatman]

Every so often when I launch an app in dev or prod the app GUI opens as it should but strangely is not fully reactive.
If the app has a menu I find that although the menu code is executed the menu will not appear and I will be left with the standard default of Deno & Edit. Also I find that any buttons on the web page will not respond to a single click however if I do a double click the button will work. There are no errors at all so I just need to close the app - sometimes it will occur again on the next restart or not at all for quite a while.
Just wondering if anyone else has come across this at all using deno desktop. It can happen on a very basic app or a more complicated one.

[ado11231]

This is a race conditon in Deno WebView/GUI apps, the window opens before the process is promoted to the active foreground app, so macOS never swaps in your custom menu and the first mouse click is consumed activating the window, meaning buttons only respond on the second click. It's intermittent because it's a timing race between process launch, window creation, and the window server. Try to explicitly activate the app after showing the window call your library's focus() or activate() method, set the activation policy to .regular so it owns the menu bar, and package it as a proper .app bundle rather than running the bare binary. Which GUI library r u using btw?

[Blatman]

Mmm sounds like the issue - I find that a series of single clicks give no response but a double-click will indeed work. I will reorder the code a bit to ensure the server and window is in place before the rest of the app process and see if it improves.
BTW I am running the app as a macos .app bundle produced from deno desktop in prod and dev will use the normal deno desktop process. Using vanilla JS no react,vite or other framework. Cheers.

[ado11231]

you're already running a proper .app bundle, the single-click-does-nothing / double-click-works pattern points specifically at window activation on click rather than window creation timing.

The reason a series of single clicks still fails is if it were purely click-to-activate, the very first click would activate the window and subsequent single clicks would work. When every single click is ignored until a double-click, it usually means the window has key/focus at the OS level but the WebView's internal hit-testing or first-responder chain isn't wired up, the double-click registers because the second mousedown lands after the WebView has finally taken first responder. So two things are likely in play: the app isn't being brought fully forward as the active app, and the WebView isn't becoming first responder.

After the window shows, force activation via whatever Deno Desktop exposes (a focus()/activate() call), so the app owns the menu bar and the WebView becomes key. Make the WebView the window's first responder / makeFirstResponder if the API allows, or trigger a programmatic focus into the page body on load (window.focus() / focusing a real element) so the DOM starts receiving events without needing the double-click to "wake" it. Also since it's vanilla JS, confirm your handlers are on real interactive elements and using click.

[Blatman]

Ah thanks for that - sounds a reasonable analysis - I'm re-arranging the code to get the server and window up and fully focussed and see if the issue improves at all, being intermittent it may be a wee while.