Reminder Window Behaviour 2

[TonyJollans]

Hi All,

In Office 2000, under Win XP Pro, if I have Help running but not visible on the screen (i.e. either minimized or behind another window) and then invoke Help via F1 or the menus, instead of the window appearing, all that happens is that the window 'icon' on the toolbar flashes orange telling me it has changed and I should look at it. This is mildly irritating but I have learned to live with it.

Now, in trying to help someone on a different issue, I see the same behaviour when Outlook issues reminders - that is instead of the reminder window popping up, the toolbar just flashes. This is not a very effective reminder. I just tried on an old system (Office 97 on Win Me) and the reminder window popped up on top of others as expected.

Is this Windows XP behaviour? And if so, is it something I can change?

Enjoy,
Tony

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[bcastner]

Yes, but I am not sure you want to. The flashing is a notification that another application in the background is requesting the focus. You can change this to allow it to steal the focus from the primary window. But this will be true for any background process.

TweakUI will let you control this. It is under General, Focus. Uncheck the top box to permit a focus change.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp

 

[tsuji]

Hello TonyJollans,

This is the setting introduced in xp to avoid the active application's focus being "stolen" (for some very annoying).

This is what Honeycutt wrote in the sample chapter available online:

http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/books/sampchap/6232.asp

When an application needs your attention—or when it simply wants to annoy you—it steals the focus from the application in which you're currently working. This leads to frustration as you flip back and forth between windows. The settings in the Focus category prevent that scenario by causing applications to flash their taskbar buttons to get your attention rather than stealing focus from the application in the foreground.
Table 5-2 describes the settings in the Focus category. The default value for ForegroundLockTimeout is 0x00030D40, or 200000. This value is the time in milliseconds before Windows XP allows an application to steal the focus from the foreground application. To convert 200000 to seconds, divide it by 1000 (200 seconds). You see the value ForegroundFlashCount in the table twice, because setting it to 0 causes the taskbar button to flash until you click it; otherwise, the taskbar button flashes the number of times you set in ForegroundFlashCount.

Table 5-2 Values in Focus

Setting Name Type Data
HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop
Prevent applications from stealing focus ForegroundLockTimeout REG_DWORD N
Flash taskbar button until I click on it ForegroundFlashCount REG_DWORD 0x00
Flash taskbar button N times ForegroundFlashCount REG_DWORD N

So if you welcome focus being "stolen", change the setting forefroundlocktimeout

[HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop]
"ForgroundLockTimeout"=dword:00000000

see if you get the behaviour correct.

regards - tsuji

 

[TonyJollans]

Thanks Bill and tsuji,

I love this site - I learn so much, so stars for helping me.

I have only had a quick play and didn't quite get the results I expected but I have pointed the OP (see thread707-947577) to this thread for hom to do as he wishes with the information.

Sorry if you feel ignored - I have tried and failed half a dozen times to make this post - don't know what the problem is at the moment.

Enjoy,
Tony

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[TonyJollans]

Seems to be working now - how strange!

Enjoy,
Tony

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We want to help you; help us to do it by reading this: Before you ask a question.
Excel VBA Training and more Help at [url=http://www.vbaexpress.

 

[bcastner]

You may not get the play you wanted, as the setting is global.

It would be nice to be able to identify applications that were permitted to steal the focus, and others that cannot. But alas.... no such deal.

We in the XP Forum are always pleased to see TonyJollans and others from the VBA Forums.