With Metacity (ver 2.8.4) it appears behind the updater window.
And hitting the Help button multiple times opens more than one window. Might be better to just refocus the old one.

Okay both not really major things just a bit odd.

$BROWSER is supposed to be set...

I know that. Though the message that tells you that isn't very helpful if it's behind the updater window.

Does it show up correctly for you if you unset $BROWSER? Maybe it's just a weirdness in metacity.

It happens in Openbox 3 too.

Weird. Works ok in Fluxbox. I don't know why it would show up underneath; it's a new dialog message, created from scratch when you press the 'help' button (not before the main window pops up).

I'm open to suggestions. Here's the code for popping up the window:

void quick_message(gchar *message, gchar *title) {
GtkWidget *dialog, *label, *okay_button;

/* Create the widgets */

dialog = gtk_dialog_new();
label = gtk_label_new (message);
okay_button = gtk_button_new_with_label(" Close ");
gtk_window_set_title (GTK_WINDOW (dialog), title);
gtk_window_set_position (GTK_WINDOW (dialog), GTK_WIN_POS_CENTER);

/* Ensure that the dialog box is destroyed when the user clicks ok. */

gtk_box_pack_start(GTK_BOX(GTK_DIALOG(dialog)->action_area),
okay_button, FALSE, FALSE, 0);

/* Add the label, and show everything we've added to the dialog. */

gtk_misc_set_padding(GTK_MISC(label), 20, 20);
gtk_container_add (GTK_CONTAINER (GTK_DIALOG(dialog)->vbox),
label);

gtk_signal_connect_object (GTK_OBJECT (okay_button), "clicked",
GTK_SIGNAL_FUNC (gtk_widget_destroy), (void*)dialog);

gtk_widget_show_all (dialog);
}

Maybe I'm on the wrong track. It's been a while since I did anything with gtk. I made a little test app, just a window with a button that calls your function.

If I create the main window with gtk_window_new(GTK_WINDOW_DIALOG) the dialog shows up behind the window. With gtk_window_new(GTK_WINDOW_TOPLEVEL) it works correctly.
Maybe that's the reason.

Ah. That's really weird; I am indeed using GTK_WINDOW_DIALOG for the main window. Thanks for looking into it.

The next patch will include this change. You rock.

Nice. It works correctly now.