The Panic Button is too shy

... it always hides behind the task bar on Windows. This has been the case for at least ten years now - from Win XP to 8.1, from V6 (or earlier) to V8.6.

We've gotten used to it, but it is annoying each time I need it, nevertheless. So if there is a laundry list at Instantiations, maybe this is an item that could be added.
It just saves two clicks and maybe is more a visual glitch than anything else, but every time I start a new version of VAST, I find myself hoping it has been changed this time.

On the other hand, I don't know if I like the position in the upper left corner of the screen on Linux better. That's where my Transcript always goes, so they constantly push and nag each other ...

The thing is: you usually don't need this window very often. But if you need it, you are in hectic and are about to panic (that's why it could be named the Panic button, which it essentially is).

If changing the position is not an option, it would at least be good if selecting it in the task switcher put it in front of the task bar instead of just giving it focus and leave it hidden behind the task bar.

Joachim

Joachim -

I guess this has never bothered me because I auto-hide my taskbar, but I can see the problem for people who don't do that.

I don't think you can put anything in front of the taskbar, but I'm quite sure someone will educate me here if this is possible.

Perhaps upper-right would be a better place? Of course I know people who run their taskbar vertically down the right (or left) edge of the screen, so I guess they would then complain.

Would having a commandline option to choose one of the 4 corners of the screen work for you? That might be possible.

John

On Sunday, January 25, 2015 at 1:27:35 AM UTC-5, Joachim Tuchel wrote:

... it always hides behind the task bar on Windows. This has been the case for at least ten years now - from Win XP to 8.1, from V6 (or earlier) to V8.6.

We've gotten used to it, but it is annoying each time I need it, nevertheless. So if there is a laundry list at Instantiations, maybe this is an item that could be added.
It just saves two clicks and maybe is more a visual glitch than anything else, but every time I start a new version of VAST, I find myself hoping it has been changed this time.

On the other hand, I don't know if I like the position in the upper left corner of the screen on Linux better. That's where my Transcript always goes, so they constantly push and nag each other ...

The thing is: you usually don't need this window very often. But if you need it, you are in hectic and are about to panic (that's why it could be named the Panic button, which it essentially is).

If changing the position is not an option, it would at least be good if selecting it in the task switcher put it in front of the task bar instead of just giving it focus and leave it hidden behind the task bar.

Joachim

On Monday, January 26, 2015 at 12:28:35 PM UTC-8, John O'Keefe wrote:

I guess this has never bothered me because I auto-hide my taskbar, but I can see the problem for people who don't do that.

Perhaps upper-right would be a better place? Of course I know people who run their taskbar vertically down the right (or left) edge of the screen, so I guess they would then complain.

Richard,

a Task Bar Icon was on my mind as well. But this would be a platfrom specific solution and is probably a lot more effort than just try and place the window somewhere else ;-) So I didn't ask a bout it.
Since we all have gotten used to the position and the little annoyance, this is not a higfh priority problem that justifies lots of work.

A Task Bar Icon that allows for some actions like debug, save image, show memory usage and the like, would be cool, however, especially if it's extendable....


Jaochim


Am Dienstag, 27. Januar 2015 00:29:45 UTC+1 schrieb Richard Sargent:

On Monday, January 26, 2015 at 12:28:35 PM UTC-8, John O'Keefe wrote:

I guess this has never bothered me because I auto-hide my taskbar, but I can see the problem for people who don't do that.

I also auto-hide, but it can still be a problem when other applications try to bring themselves to your attention.

Additionally, having two images open simultaneously is problematic. Which of the two instances corresponds to which image?

Perhaps upper-right would be a better place? Of course I know people who run their taskbar vertically down the right (or left) edge of the screen, so I guess they would then complain.

There is no one place that is better. It would be nice if this were a task bar icon with its own menu and actions, configurable from the ini file, etc.

John,

I guess you guys in the dev team are the most frequent users of this button anyways. I admit I didn't use it often until I used Glorp, which sometimes makes the image hang (support ticket is being worked on / on hold due to non-recreatability of the problem).

I agree to you and Richard that there is no perfect position on screen for it, I used to have my task bar at the top of the screen for a while on one of our projects, so the upper corners also may be a problem. On Win 8 and later, none of the borders might be a good place...

Of course, one can always open an image, position the window and save the image first, so that all is well. Just like dismissing the first steps and organizer first and saving an image has turned into a routine for me.

The other problem that I didn't mention is that it seems the Panic Button sometimes also stays behind other applications (iun my case the IBM Data Studio / DB2 accessory, which is a Java Application), so I also have to close a bunch of windows to get to the Panic Button.

So what is my answer to your question? Where should it be positioned? I guess the best thing one could do is just move it up 100 pixels or so. Maybe there is an API call to find out hogh high the task bar is. If the Taskbar is not on tho bottom of the screen, this still wouldn't hurt too much. And it would still be in a place that people are used to.

I don't think this is worth introducing a lot of configuration stuff or command line options. People usually don't care and you can solve this by saving the image. Just a tiny tweak to the default position and - if possible - to its priority compared to other applications on screen.

My suggestion: move it up a handful of pixels by default and forget about this.

Joachim



Am Montag, 26. Januar 2015 21:28:35 UTC+1 schrieb John O'Keefe:

Joachim -

I guess this has never bothered me because I auto-hide my taskbar, but I can see the problem for people who don't do that.

I don't think you can put anything in front of the taskbar, but I'm quite sure someone will educate me here if this is possible.

Perhaps upper-right would be a better place? Of course I know people who run their taskbar vertically down the right (or left) edge of the screen, so I guess they would then complain.

Would having a commandline option to choose one of the 4 corners of the screen work for you? That might be possible.

John

On Sunday, January 25, 2015 at 1:27:35 AM UTC-5, Joachim Tuchel wrote:

... it always hides behind the task bar on Windows. This has been the case for at least ten years now - from Win XP to 8.1, from V6 (or earlier) to V8.6.

We've gotten used to it, but it is annoying each time I need it, nevertheless. So if there is a laundry list at Instantiations, maybe this is an item that could be added.
It just saves two clicks and maybe is more a visual glitch than anything else, but every time I start a new version of VAST, I find myself hoping it has been changed this time.

On the other hand, I don't know if I like the position in the upper left corner of the screen on Linux better. That's where my Transcript always goes, so they constantly push and nag each other ...

The thing is: you usually don't need this window very often. But if you need it, you are in hectic and are about to panic (that's why it could be named the Panic button, which it essentially is).

If changing the position is not an option, it would at least be good if selecting it in the task switcher put it in front of the task bar instead of just giving it focus and leave it hidden behind the task bar.

Joachim

Hi Guys,