This didn't used to be possible in MacOS X. When I switched from Windows, it was such a lovely surprise I considered it one of the best reasons to make the change.
That didn't last. Maybe five years ago, something changed and MacOS allowed programs to hijack focus. I was so disappointed.
Apple seems to be (very slowly) getting back to fundamentals. I wish reverting this change was part of that program.
Agreed. There's few seemingly "minor" things that can make me see bright red quite like this. It's such an actively hostile dark UX pattern. It should simply be made impossible.
What drives me crazy the most is I can see the context menu, for example for Webex, is disabled intentionally so we can't have the quit option there
People think I'm weird or must struggle with bad UIs for being picky and only using older FOSS apps but IME your life/UX is actually a lot better for it.
By now I do almost everything in the terminal except for web browsing. And what can I say, I do not miss the popups, confusing menus, dark UI patterns, and all the other bad ideas.
I don't use WebEx much, but its "Hey, I know you just tried to quit but don't you want me to hang out just in case" attitude makes me CRAZY.
I'm a little confused by your reference to the "tray" on OSX tho. Where's the tray? We have a dock, and we have a menu bar where some things go, but no tray that I'm aware of.