Windows Taskbar problem - FO acts as if in fullscreen mode

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maxand
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Windows Taskbar problem - FO acts as if in fullscreen mode

#1 Post by maxand »

I play FO in Windowed mode on Win 7 64-bit Home Premium, with the Taskbar at the bottom of the screen.

After opening FO I notice that hovering over the taskbar FO icon brings up a choice of two windows, shown as stacked icons above the FO taskbar icon. The lower one is the main FO window. The upper one brings to the front what looks like a command line (black) window with a cursor at the top LH corner, except that I find it impossible to enter any text into this window. I don't know what this window is for, but closing it shuts down the whole game, which can be disconcerting.

Normally this wouldn't be a problem (I've learnt to leave it alone), but the fact that FO requires two windows means that when I hover over the FO Taskbar icon I get two popup window icons and need to select one. If I keep switching between my browser (say, to read Quick Start page) and FO itself, I need to select the main window each time, obviously. When I click on the appropriate pop-up window icon (I've set my Taskbar Properties > Buttons to Always Combine) the popup window icons disappear leaving the FO window underneath. As soon as I move the mouse cursor (which was just above the taskbar) the whole layout (starfield + systems) move with it. I have to remember to left-click once as soon as FO becomes the main window, to fix the position of the starfield before moving the cursor further.

I've tried several methods to prevent this happening - setting Taskbar Properties > Buttons to Never Combine, creating an extra Registry Dword as described here, etc. but none of them prevent this. Worse, sometimes even when my mouse cursor is ON the Taskbar, moving it causes the starfield to move with it, as if FO thinks it's in fullscreen mode. I've tried reducing the default window height by 50-100 px but this doesn't help either.

Has anyone else had this problem and knows how to fix it? I specified Windows Home Premium as I believe the Professional version has a control for eliminating pop-up window icons above the Taskbar, but even then I doubt doing so would fix it. Thanks for any assistance.

PS I suppose playing in Fullscreen mode would eliminate this, but it just makes it harder to switch between different apps.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Windows Taskbar problem - FO acts as if in fullscreen mo

#2 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Map scrolling issues when clicking on taskbar icons are another case of the OIS input plugin for the Ogre3D engine being not very good. It gets confused about the mouse state when clicking on / off the window as it, presumably is getting some of the mouse button down and button up messages but not others and the inputs don't make sense with its internal mouse state memory.

I find it doesn't happen when using alt-tab to switch away. I think it sets the mouse state as the button being down when the click off the window happens, but it doesn't catch the button up as by then it's not the focus window anymore...

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MatGB
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Re: Windows Taskbar problem - FO acts as if in fullscreen mo

#3 Post by MatGB »

Yeah, I have similar problems but like Geoff normally use alt+tab (I was taught this as a great function before I even owned my own PC so it's ingrained usage), there are other issues, I sometimes find if I mouse back in and click it selects the end turn button, which is annoying if I was doing something else becuase it was processing turns.

(and while I normally play on my laptop I am increasingly desk based with an extra monitor which is where FO sits currently, making it easier to make the mistake).

I personally loath "always combine" as an option and prefer to have each item on the taskbar separate, I'm an old curmudgeon in this and still sometimes miss Win3.1 with its complete inability to be "helpful" and "user friendly". IIRC, the small command line window is the server process, the main window we play in is the client, but I might be slightly wrong—FWIW if you can see both and are typing in the client stuff does display in the server, but beyond that it does nothing except run the game...
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Windows Taskbar problem - FO acts as if in fullscreen mo

#4 Post by Geoff the Medio »

MatGB wrote:IIRC, the small command line window is the server process...
No. The extra window is present before starting the server and has nothing to do with it.

FreeOrion.exe runs as a console program, which runs in the first window. Ogre creates a new window to use at the render target when initialized. I vaguely recall it being possible to manipulate the extra window, possibly to not show it, though I might be confusing that with creating separate console windows for the server and all AIs. But regardless, people have various issues with input, making having the other window there to kill useful. It's also useful to have the extra window for outputting debug info faster than going through the log.

maxand
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Re: Windows Taskbar problem - FO acts as if in fullscreen mo

#5 Post by maxand »

Thanks again guys for your responses - glad I'm not the only one to have had this problem. Also thanks for explaining the diff between the console and the Ogre 3D windows.

Alt+Tab is definitely the solution here, thanks Mat and Geoff. On reading it up I found this article which describes several ways to apply it. (Added) This Wikipedia article is also valuable. Unfortunately some of them (use the arrow keys, use Alt+Ctrl+Tab) simply didn't work on my system (Win 7 Home Premium), so here is how I do it now:

Let's say I want to switch between Firefox (FF) and FO's Ogre window. Starting off in FO, hold down the Alt key and press the Tab key. The small Alt+Tab switcher window should appear, with a box around the previous window opened. If this wasn't FF (or whichever app you wanted to switch between), press and release the Tab key, which moves the frame from L to R until the desired app (FF) is framed. To move from R to L, depress the Shift key as well as Alt before tapping the Tab key as above. Once FF is selected, release the Alt key; the Alt+Tab switcher window will close and you will be in FF.

Press Alt+Tab again and the switcher window reappears, only this time the previous app (FO) is framed. Release the app key and you will be back in FO. The proof that this works is that now you will find you can move your mouse cursor freely without the whole starfield following it around. To return focus to the starfield (i.e., to drag it around) you will now have to click on it first.

Apologies if this got a bit long-winded.

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MatGB
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Re: Windows Taskbar problem - FO acts as if in fullscreen mo

#6 Post by MatGB »

Just bumping up, [r7207] appears to have substantially improved this issue for me, so much so if I forget to alt-tab in and just click somewhere it doesn't start doign weird things (like end turn or get rid of the planet I was looking at from view). So an improvement, thanks Geoff, probably ought to have mentioned the minor annoyance sooner ;-)
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maxand
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Re: Windows Taskbar problem - FO acts as if in fullscreen mo

#7 Post by maxand »

Interesting to read about [r7207]. As it is only an alpha build, is it fairly safe to download and where do I find it? It doesn't seem to be listed on the Test page.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Windows Taskbar problem - FO acts as if in fullscreen mo

#8 Post by Geoff the Medio »

maxand wrote:Interesting to read about [r7207]. As it is only an alpha build, is it fairly safe to download and where do I find it? It doesn't seem to be listed on the Test page.
7207 is an SVN revision, not a test build. You can build that revision specifically, but just using any later numbered revision test build should include the changes (unless they are subsequently reverted, which they haven't yet).

maxand
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Re: Windows Taskbar problem - FO acts as if in fullscreen mo

#9 Post by maxand »

Thanks Geoff.

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