10 replies to this topic

[ehathgepiurhe]

Hi,

ZP v5 has an annoying behaviour on my PC - it continually forces itself to be the top window whenever I open another program while ZP is open (have ZP open playing a video, I open up another program - which should make the new program window the top window - and then ZP forces itself to the top). The only way I can get access to my new program window is by minimising ZP entirely. I cannot find any options in ZP to change this behaviour - am I just missing the option somewhere or is this a bug? The Right Click-Stay on Top option is unchecked (ie not active).

Thanks,

CM

Edited by ehathgepiurhe, 05 April 2007 - 12:29 PM.

[bLight]

Are you using some non-standard windows manager? This sounds really really strange. There is also a ZP setting to bring ZP to the top if a new file is played. This setting is defaulted to disabled, but if you enabled it, it might account for what you're describing.

Also, the DIVX decoder tends to bring whichever player is using it to the top, so it's not recommended to use it. If you are using the divx decoder, you may want to switch to ffdshow.

[ehathgepiurhe]

Are you using some non-standard windows manager? This sounds really really strange. There is also a ZP setting to bring ZP to the top if a new file is played. This setting is defaulted to disabled, but if you enabled it, it might account for what you're describing.

Also, the DIVX decoder tends to bring whichever player is using it to the top, so it's not recommended to use it. If you are using the divx decoder, you may want to switch to ffdshow.

Hi Blight,

No, just vanilla XP Home. I've just found that setting, and it is unchecked for me. I don't use divx either, unless ZP's Install Center installs it. The only codecs I have installed are those that Install Center installed. I have installed ZP v4.51 as a second installation, and this behaviour is definitely not in 4.51, so it is something new to v5, and if it was something outside ZP, it should affect both versions equally. I did post another thread about this (http://forum.inmatri...?showtopic=5873) and to answer your question there, I uninstalled and reinstalled v5, and it always does the same thing. Always ZP forces itself to be the active window three times whenever I open a new program window. On the fourth time (for each new program I open), ZP finally stays in the background like it is supposed to. There must be a simple answer to this, I'm just about to wipe v5 entirely and go back to 4.51 it's that annoying an issue. If it wasn't for v5 having Install Center, I would have done it already (with 4.51, I would have to install manually each codec that I needed, Install Center is a great feature of v5, which means it is so much quicker to get up and running with v5 than previous versions).

CM

[bLight]

Instead of trying to uninstall, can you run the "defaultsettings.exe" program?

ZP also goes to the front if you go fullscreen. Also, if some program sends Alt+0 to ZP, it will also move to the front. Try editing the keyboard list and remove the Alt+0 entry to see if it's somehow responsible.

[ehathgepiurhe]

Hi Blight,

No luck. I ran the defaultsettings.exe and then uninstalled ZP, removed all registry entries manually and then re-installed. The problem still occurred. I then edited the keys and removed alt,79 as you suggested, but again, ZP still forces itself to be the top window. I don't know what else to try.
I only ever have ZP playing in a window too, not fullscreen.

[arete25]

Hi Blight,

No luck. I ran the defaultsettings.exe and then uninstalled ZP, removed all registry entries manually and then re-installed. The problem still occurred. I then edited the keys and removed alt,79 as you suggested, but again, ZP still forces itself to be the top window. I don't know what else to try.
I only ever have ZP playing in a window too, not fullscreen.

Just an interested observer here (no solutions), but is this happening on every video? I ask only because I remember having this problem, but now I can't reproduce it anymore. Is there some trailer or sample you could point me too?

[ehathgepiurhe]

Yep, every video as far as I can tell (well, I've never noticed it to be only with certain video clips). I have just made an interesting discovery though - the problem only happens if my mouse cursor travels over the Zoom Player control bar (i.e. the bit at the bottom of the ZP window where the play, stop, forward, back etc buttons are). Example - if I have a small program window (say Notepad) on top, and a larger Zoom Player underneath and I want to move my mouse to the smaller window. Now, if my mouse is currently on the Windows taskbar, and I move the mouse up, over the bit where the ZP buttons are, the ZP window puts itself over the top of the Notepad window. I then go back down to the taskbar, click on the Notepad button (which brings Notepad to the top again), and then again move my mouse up to click on it (again going over the ZP button area), again ZP forces itself to be on top. It does this exactly 4 times, when on the 5th attempt, ZP will always stay as the underneath window. However, start the test again. This time, instead of moving my mouse upwards from the task bar, over the ZP button area and onto the Notepad window, I move my mouse to the right hand side of the screen, and then move it onto the ZP window say halfway up the ZP window itself - then ZP will not force itself onto the top. What significance this is, I don't know, but the ZP button bar/time seeker thingy is the trigger. That's all very confusing without a diagram, so I have uploaded a jpeg of what I mean to here:
http://img208.images...404/zplayer.jpg (128KB)

CM

Edit: I normally wouldn't edit a post almost 5 years old, but this is a bit of a special case (I think there may still be a number of Zoom Player v5 users out there so this thread may still be of use to some people). The original image link above was long dead, so I have now replaced it with a working link (I still had a copy of the image file, so I uploaded it again).

Edited by ehathgepiurhe, 08 February 2012 - 12:25 PM.
Replaced dead image link with a working link

[ehathgepiurhe]

Yes! I've now worked out the cause of the problem. When you disable the "Show Time Seek Position Over Timeline" setting (Advanced Mode, On Screen Display-Actions), the problem stops occuring. Yes! The only downside is that I had actually gotten quite used to that setting being enabled, I liked being able to see at a glance where I would skip to in the video when I put my mouse cursor on the Timeline, but that ZP forcing itself to the top thing is far more annoying than not having that setting enabled. Maybe Blight can do some re-coding and stop this behaviour when that option is enabled? Or even change ZP to the way that "The KMPlayer" does things - instead of having a pop-up, KMPlayer puts the same info into the control bar area itself. It has a dual time display hh:mm:ss/hh:mm:ss. The first hh:mm:ss is actually the timer that increments as the video plays. When you put your mouse over the timeline, the second hh:mm:ss displays the time at which your mouse is pointing. I prefer the way ZP does it, but if that function can't be changed so it stops causing this problematic behaviour, then the other way may be the way to do things.

CM

[arete25]

That was pretty obscure, nice detective work, there:^) I got mine to do the same thing, except mine always comes to the foreground when it shouldn't, even after the 4th or 5th attempt (I stopped trying after the 20th), which makes more sense. It even happens when the video is paused, but not when it is stopped. Also try this. Leave the mouse pointer on the timeline and try to use Alt-Tab to switch to another window - impossible as zoom happily stays up front. Disabling the timeline seek popup fixed the issue as you said, which has always been one of my favorite features.

I like your idea of replacing the tooltip with an extra readout somewhere in the interface. The floating tooltip always looked a bit obtrusive/out-of-place in the zoom gui, and seems a bit cpu% intensive; my system is already cpu%-challenged for the h264 stuff. I also always get the long trail of yellow boxes when I move the mouse quickly across the timeline - yuk. What I mean is that the old popups aren't removed fast enough before the new ones appear. Maybe my system is too slow, but an extra fixed-position readout somewhere would fix that too. But I know that's a pretty subjective issue, so it's probably not changing. Still I like this feature a lot in general.

[ehathgepiurhe]

Hi arete25,

Thank you. I have to admit, there was a bit of luck involved. I had Zoom Player open, and that Notepad window on top of it. I had just been in to ZP options checking and unchecking some of the options in the Interface section, just to see if I could have a bit of luck and stumble on the right option that was causing the control bar to behave like that. Anyway, I had no success here, so I closed down the options dialog. I still had the two windows open, and I was just idly moving the mouse around the screen, pondering what the problem with the control bar could be. While doing this, I accidentally moved the mouse from the bottom of the screen, over the control bar and onto the video window. ZP immediately forced itself to the top...but before it did, there was a split-second displaying of the time in that tooltip (I was moving the mouse at just the right speed, too quickly and I wouldn't have seen that tooltip). Suddenly, the little light bulb went off in my head. I immediately went back into ZP options, found that tooltip option and disabled it. Clicked Apply and then exited back to ZP. Moved the mouse over the control bar, and ZP didn't force itself to the top

And now that you mention it, I had the same problem as yourself with the ZP tooltip anyway - it was a big, ugly, yellow box on my system. And like yourself, when I dragged the mouse along the timeline, there was that awful 'long trail of yellow boxes' displaying problem. I don't think it is a PC problem - my PC is not the very latest, but still a respectable Athlon XP2100+ with 512MB of RAM. I think the problem may be that the tooltips were changed for ZP v5 - I don't remember them having this display problem with ZP v4. Anyway, let's hope that now the cause of the problem is known, Blight can come up with a solution to it so we can turn that option back on. It was odd that it on my PC, ZP forced itself to the top 4 times and then on the 5th time, ZP stopped forcing itself to the top though - as you said, it makes sense for it to happen every single time. Maybe an individual PC configuration can affect it slightly, and maybe I was just slightly lucky. Who knows.

Regards,

CM

[bLight]

Ok, that was indeed tricky to track down.

In any case, I modified the code so that the hint pops up only if ZP is the active window, that should fix it.