hover working when window out of focus confuses user

Question

A few weeks ago I added a suckerfish (css + javascript for IE based) menu to my webpage. It happens to be a rather long list that can extend out of the screen's height. This is no problem as horizontal scrolling will get you there.

The only problem happens when the browser is out of focus. The hover still gets triggered, but the scroll doesn't work. I can't go and ask the user to first give the browser focus off course, so is there a way to solve this issue?

--Edit--
It is not my intention to steal focus. I was more thinking in the line of not enabling the hover when focus is lost.
Furthermore, I don't see how I could make a list of languages to translate the site in shorter. The problem is that the website should be viewable starting 800x600.

Answer 1

No. You can't force the browser window to steal user focus on hover. Closest you could get is to show an alert() which would of course be a terrible user experience, and would still not force focus on the browser window on all platforms.

A better option is to shorten those menu lists! Much better usability anyway.

Answer 2

As @Triptych mentioned, there are 2 separate usability issues:

1) is that your suggested workaround is hostile to your users, and

2) horizontal scrolling for navigation should be avoided (it rarely works well cross-browser anyway).

It sounds as if you are adding way too much complexity for a simple menu to handle. If your menu really needs to be that verbose then you may want to consider a more compartmentalized system (i.e. accordion, or a top menu with drill downs into sub-menus).