Little Thing

[Stan Mathews]

RE: Little Thing


Like this , darn end quotes!

[CharlesK]

RE: Little Thing

I can understand that! Here's what John Woram, who has written a fantastic book on the Windows Registry, has sto say about this setting:

"If you clear the "Prevent Applications..." box, the window for a background application (say, an incoming fax, etc.) might pop up while you're working on something else. If the box is checked, then the background application window's title bar and/or taskbar icon will simply blink instead, and you might not see if if the app you're working on occupies the full screen. The two radio buttons determine
the behavior of the blink.

John"

I've asked him what does this setting change in the registry. No answer yet.

His explaination explains exactly the behavior I see. From what I can tell, Alpha5 launches, then it launches A5Halt.

Now, if Windows blocks one application from stealing the focus, then when Alpha5 tries to get the focus back from A5Halt, Windows blocks this attempt but flashes the taskbar icon instead.

But, if Windows allows an application to steal the focus, then Alpha5 can get the focus back from A5Halt.

I was wondering what happens if A5Halt.exe is renamed to, say, A5Halt.bxe, so I tried it. Guess what? It works! Alpha5 always has focus when it starts regardless of the Prevent Stealing setting. I do NOT know what side effects this causes, though. (A5Halt.exe is located in the folder where Alpha5 was installed.)

I am anxiously waiting John's response.

Charles

[CharlesK]

RE: Little Thing

Like this?

I see. The message compose window is like Notepad. The HTML doesn't show up until the message is posted.

Thank you!!!

[CharlesK]

RE: Little Thing

I've done some more digging and here's what I've found:

Microsoft introduced this new behavior to prevent an application (like ICQ, or a fax program or a virus) that is not explicitly launched by the user from becoming the active window. If you are typing in Word and ICQ pops up, you end up typing in ICQ, not in Word.

The application that launches then flashes its taskbar icon (3 times by default) indicating this window was denied the privilege to be displayed as foreground window.

This new security feature cannot be disabled from the Windows interface. That is why TweakUI (or editing the registry) is necessary.

There is only one registry setting that turns this on or off. It was originally thought that this worked on Windows 2000 or ME, but it obviously works for Win98se.

All you have to do is modify the ForegroundLockTimeout to enable/disable this new feature. Notice that this key already exists in Win98se/ME/2k. It defaults to PREVENT focus capture.

To ALLOW applications to steal the focus:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop
ForegroundLockTimeout: 00 00 00 00

To PREVENT applications from stealing the focus (use appropriate value based on your Windows version):

For Win98se:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop
ForegroundLockTimeout: 98 3A 00 00

For Win2k:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop
ForegroundLockTimeout: 20 FE 00 00

I don't know the value for WinME.
98 3A 00 00 is 15000 decimal
20 FE 00 00 is 20000 decimal

There is a second key that sets how many times the icon flashes when the app has been prevented from stealing the focus:
ForegroundFlashCount: 0x 00 00 00

In this key, x is the number of times the icon flashes. If x=0, it flashes until the icon is clicked.

My recommendation: Run Regedit and locate the ForegroundLockTimeout key. Export this key and name the reg file Prevent.reg. Now, change this key to 00 00 00 00. Export this key and name it Allow.reg. Now, just double-click Allow.reg to allow focus capture, or double-click Prevent.reg to prevent focus capture.

Hope this makes sense!

Charles

[whanigsberg]

RE: Little Thing

Charles,

"Hope this makes sense"

One thing it clarifies is why the problem is present on one of my machines and not on the other. This was quite a piece of detective work.

Thanks for your efforts,
Bill

[martinwcole]

RE: Little Thing

a fix for this was posted a few months ago.
put sys_send_keys("{esc}") at the onintialize event for the beginning form

[CALocklin]

RE: Little Thing

OK, it's not pertinent to the original issue but here's a hint about naming menus:

Never use "Main Menu". Instead, use "Menu_main".

Two reasons: (1) Using the underscore rather than a space makes it clearer in code and may (slight possibility) save you some trouble later, (2) start all menus with "Menu" so they all appear together and you don't 'lose' them.

EX:
Menu_main
Menu_maintenance
Menu_parts
Menu_somethingorother
Menu_whatever

(Sounds like an item for the new Tips sight!)

[JerryBrightbill]

RE: Little Thing

Bill,

The computer with Win95 did not have a focus problem and was working fine. When I changed an app for Win98 I tested it on the Win95 machine that was using the same app to check for any problems the change would create, but there were none.

Jerry