My best solution for this so far is to install Compiz and within it take the following actions: select "General Options" from the top of the first window, open the "Focus & Raise Behaviour" tab, select "Very High" from the "Focus Prevention Level" dropdown, and enter "any" in the "Focus Prevention Windows" text box.
I'm getting used to the fact that I need to visually scan the applications at the bottom of the window on a regular basis and it produces some odd behaviors such as applications which previously had focus but then yield it to other applications after a dialog has been completed.
Still looking for better solutions for this, and I expect that I could get better behavior by tweaking the settings in Compiz, but I'm too busy for this.
at ccsm "opacity,brightness and saturation" add a opacity rule with 95 value (set the value first) and type "any" without quotes on the window matcher, it works perfectly to know a window spawned behind the current one! :) – Aquarius Power – 2014-06-18T22:34:49.603
did you found a workaround? I was thinking, there is a opacity mod at ccsm that if we put all windows at like 95% (slightly transparent), we would know when another window pops up (just below the focused window) and would be less troubling that dont knowing it spawned.. still have to try it tho... may be annoying also.. – Aquarius Power – 2014-06-18T04:00:34.350