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Cerberus
Netherlands
86 Posts |
 Posted - 02/20/2012 : 17:54:16
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When I press down the right mouse button, so at the beginning of every gesture, certain elements in the interface of various programs flicker briefly. It only happens if I'm drawing a gesture: it does not happen when I don't move the mouse while the right button is down.
I have noticed this since the beginning, but I wanted to eliminate other things first. However, I have just reverted to a rather bare installation of XP SP3, and it still happens. With Strokeit, there is no flickering whatever I do. I am guessing there is something about the transparent window that you said is activated whenever a gesture is drawn.
This is not a major issue, but it is somewhat distracting. A few elements that flicker (it's always the same elements):
- All icons on the desktop
- The tabs tab in Notepad++
- A toolbar in my Dutch-English-Dutch dictionary program
- The word "Address" next to the address bar in Windows Explorer
- The Windows logo in Explorer (not always clearly visible, though)
A few things that do not flicker:
- Anything in Firefox
- Anything in Everything
- Anything obvious implied in the list of things that do flicker above, like other Explorer elements
Perhaps this cannot be fixed; I can certainly live with it. I am on XP SP3 with most hotfixes, not many programs installed. I've tried disabling all programs, but that doesn't help. My video card is an otherwise fine Nvidia GT 8800 with the latest drivers, standard settings. Other programs that use transparent windows do not show this behaviour. I've tried disabling hardware acceleration and going to safe mode in a new profile, but it still happened there. |
Edited by - Cerberus on 02/20/2012 18:09:13 |
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Rob
USA
2615 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2012 : 19:19:20
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There's no external variables that are causing it. It's exactly due to the transparent window. When I started developing S+ back in 2009 I was trying to draw directly to the screen (like StrokeIt did) and quickly found out why SI wasn't working on Vista/7. I was teetering with having two modes, directly to the screen for XP and using the transparent window for Vista/7. So much of the S+ code base was designed to use the transparent window after that and since I didn't use XP anymore, I didn't really notice any kind of flicker; or at least attributed it to the VM I had XP in.
When I picked up working on S+ a couple months ago, I didn't even bother looking into it again, figuring there was little value in developing an entirely separate code path just to support an extremely old OS.
I'll see if there's a simple way to accomplish this without breaking anything or adding substantially to the S+ code to prevent this. If it weren't for some apps, leaving the transparent window on top at all times worked great! But some apps like iTunes wouldn't properly paint themselves since they believed a window was on top of it.
I'm moving this to requests as it's definitely not a bug. |
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Rob
USA
2615 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2012 : 22:53:19
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Ok, so I believe for XP Jeff is just XORing below the cursor (which is why it isn't always the color you picked..) and retracing the gesture path, XORing it back to the original color below the cursor. This prevents having to invalidate the screen (which causes flicker as well).
This method doesn't work when the desktop is composited, like in Vista/7 (which is why SI wasn't drawing properly until Jeff updated). However, duplicating SI's method for XP is possible, but is quite an undertaking considering the many pieces internal to S+ which that would affect. As well as having to change options like Opacity in Preferences (since there's no alpha blending when drawing direct to the screen in XP).
But, I've added an option under Preferences (Keep Gesture Draw Window On Top) in the download below which allows you to tell S+ to leave the gesture draw window on top at all times. This does eliminate the flicker, but I'm unsure of any other potential side effects. I did test the latest version of iTunes (the only app I had a problem with in 2009 when leaving the window on top) and it looks fine...so run with this, see what happens, and let me know. I'll run with it on as well, so I won't release any updates until I know whether this can stay or not... yes, it's optional, but if it's nothing but trouble, I won't leave it in at all.
(32-bit only)
http://www.strokesplus.com/files/StrokesPlus_1.6.8_x86_Topmost.zip |
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Rob
USA
2615 Posts |
Posted - 02/21/2012 : 12:21:22
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| After running with it for a while, I can see it doesn't immediately cause any problems, so I've released the option in 1.6.8. Still leaving this request here for a bit. |
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Cerberus
Netherlands
86 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2012 : 18:48:06
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Wow, perfect!! You're the best! 1.6.8 works very well, no flickering at all. Drawing also seems a tiny bit more responsive, but that might be my imagination. 1.6.9 crashed on load, but I'll report that as a separate bug. Oh, and, by the way, is XP really that out of fashion?
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Rob
USA
2615 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2012 : 21:26:51
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| You know I'm just trolling you, right? =) |
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Cerberus
Netherlands
86 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2012 : 21:40:17
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quote:
Originally posted by Rob
You know I'm just trolling you, right? =)
Just checking! I know some otherwise reasonable people... |
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Rob
USA
2615 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2012 : 21:54:31
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| So what do you think, we calling this request complete? |
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Cerberus
Netherlands
86 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2012 : 22:01:23
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| Yes, by all means! Working perfectly now with the experimental option checked. I'll be sure to complain again if it turns out that option breaks something else, hehe. |
Edited by - Cerberus on 02/22/2012 22:01:50 |
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Rob
USA
2615 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2012 : 22:02:53
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| Of that I've no doubt! |
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[COMPLETE] Draw gestures directly to screen in XP
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