dialogs come up behind other windows

Not sure if this is a cadence specific thing or a general window manager config issue or something else but I'm having the following problem.  I am using gnome desktop with metacity as the window manager.  I use IC Manage (including the IC Manage library manager as a design data management tool.  I have noticed that in virtuoso when I do thing like open a hierarchy editor config file, the dialog which asks me about opening the config view and/or the schematic, this new dialog appears behind my library manager window.  I've had some other cases with cadence (virtuoso from IC615 and IC616) dialogs coming up behind other windows.  Sometimes this gives the impression that my session is hung when in fact what has happened is there is a modal dialog hiding somewhere.  Has anyone else had this issue and found any way to resolve it?  It gets fairly frustrating.

I have tried

<pre>

gconftool-2 --set /apps/metacity/general/new_windows_always_on_top --type bool true
gconftool-2 --set /apps/metacity/general/place_on_current_monitor --type bool true

</pre>

with no luck.

Thanks

-Dan