PPOVwin does strange things to other running applications when
finishing/starting a rendering. This is specially visible and annoying when
rendering an animation with many quick-traced frames.

Observed problems :
+ povwin steals or gives focus at each frame ;
+ povwin closes (not minimises or hides, but closes) other windows or
applications (observed very often with winhelp, even other applications
helps ; win explorer windows ; acdsee32 and display properties)
+ povwin prevents screensaver to start or interrupts screensaver (apparently
randomly).

----------------------------------------------------------------
   POV INFO
----------------------------------------------------------------
POV-Ray for Windows
Version 3.1.beta.6b.watcom.win32 [Pentium II optimised]


----------------------------------------------------------------
   SYSTEM INFO
----------------------------------------------------------------
MS Windows 95 4.00.950 B
IE 4.0 4.711712.6
Pentium Pro 233MHz
128MB RAM

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"Philippe Debar" <phi### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
>Observed problems :
>+ povwin steals or gives focus at each frame ;

Not 'steals' ; it is explicitly given the focus (by Windows itself). This is
normal windows behaviour when a window is created. if you don't like it then
turn that behaviour off (i.e. read the docs). As this particular problem is
explicitly dealt with in the docs (even using the exact example of focus per
frame you have used above) it is quite clear that you have not done so before
posting your 'bug report'.

>+ povwin closes (not minimises or hides, but closes) other windows or
>applications (observed very often with winhelp, even other applications
>helps ; win explorer windows ; acdsee32 and display properties)

frankly, I seriously doubt this. I've never heard of it. It's not even
(normally) possible for this to happen under Windows 95/98 or NT. A thread
cannot close a window belonging to another thread or process. That is a
Windows-enforced rule.

I suggest you take a closer look at what's happening and find another cause for
it. If you're dead sure that it's happening then it's not a POVWIN problem -
you've got a flakey system.

>+ povwin prevents screensaver to start or interrupts screensaver (apparently
>randomly).

If it's random, how can you know that POVWIN causes it ?

Post a reply to this message

Hello povteam

I seem to be getting on your nerves and I'd like to apologise: I am sorry.

povray.org admin team wrote in message
<360ce4e1.288616258@news.povray.org>...
>Not 'steals' ; it is explicitly given the focus (by Windows itself). If you
don't like it then
>turn that behaviour off (i.e. read the docs). As this particular problem is
>explicitly dealt with in the docs (even using the exact example of focus
per
>frame you have used above) it is quite clear that you have not done so
before
>posting your 'bug report'.

I always RTFM (heck, I even print it) and I check before posting... and you
are right: it is in there. Sorry... I know this must be pretty annoying for
you... The whole pov doc is quite big, I can't remenber everything. By the
way, why hasn't the win-gui help a find option? This could eliminate some of
my kind of posts.

>>+ povwin closes (not minimises or hides, but closes) other windows or
>>applications
>frankly, I seriously doubt this. I've never heard of it. It's not even
>(normally) possible for this to happen under Windows 95/98 or NT. A thread
>cannot close a window belonging to another thread or process. That is a
>Windows-enforced rule.
>I suggest you take a closer look at what's happening and find another cause
for
>it. If you're dead sure that it's happening then it's not a POVWIN
problem -
>you've got a flakey system.

Yes, it is pretty weird. Yes, I am sure it happens. It happens only with
pov, when finishing/begining a render (I don't know which since I only
observed that when rendering animations or queued files). Maybe I have a
flakey system (that's a nice word), but I rebuild it from scratch and it
still happens. I don't believe I have anything fancy running in the
background, and I do not have many things installed except pov, ms office
and acdsee. I can't find any other cause then pov or pov interaction, but I
am no system engineer. It is not very serious; I usually work only with pov
and nothing else... I hope I am the only one suffering from this.

>>+ povwin prevents screensaver to start or interrupts screensaver
(apparently
>>randomly).
>If it's random, how can you know that POVWIN causes it ?
Because it happens only when pov is running... I can't prove it, but I
believe it is povwin - or an interaction with povwin. I wrote randomly
because, while it happens only when rendering, it does not always happens,
and the waking-up does not seem to be tied with a precise part or the
rendering (parsing/new render window/tracing/save line/eof/close/...). Maybe
it is tied with the previous problem?
With the complication of today's os, who knows?


On the whole, pov is fantastic. I use it everyday, and I enjoy it - very
much. I only wanted to help you make it even better. I never wanted to hurt
you, and I am really sorry if I did.


Povingly,


Philippe

Post a reply to this message

>I always RTFM (heck, I even print it) and I check before posting... and you
>are right: it is in there. Sorry... I know this must be pretty annoying for
>you... The whole pov doc is quite big, I can't remenber everything. By the
>way, why hasn't the win-gui help a find option? This could eliminate some of
>my kind of posts.

That's a good point. We may add a button for it. Otherwise, press 'index' then
choose the find tab (that's standard WinHelp 4 behaviour).

>On the whole, pov is fantastic. I use it everyday, and I enjoy it - very
>much. I only wanted to help you make it even better. I never wanted to hurt
>you, and I am really sorry if I did.

Not hurt. Just exhausted.

As for the bug, if I can find some other users who report the same problem I'll
look into it. As it is this is the first time (in the two years since POVWIN
was first released) that I can recall of ever hearing of a problem of this
nature (closing other apps windows).

Post a reply to this message

>...that I can recall of ever hearing of a problem of this
>nature (closing other apps windows).

hwnd = FindWindow("POV-Ray for Windows", NULL);
SendMessage(hwnd, WM_CLOSE, 0, 0);



Friedemann Schmidt
F.S### [at] fhtw-berlinde
Raytracing-Gallery: http://www.rz.fhtw-berlin.de/~s0049669/

Post a reply to this message

F.S### [at] fhtw-berlinde (Friedemann Schmidt) wrote:

>>...that I can recall of ever hearing of a problem of this
>>nature (closing other apps windows).
>
>hwnd = FindWindow("POV-Ray for Windows", NULL);
>SendMessage(hwnd, WM_CLOSE, 0, 0);

Yes, of course I'm aware of this method. But you have to do it deliberately. 
So I state again: I've never heard of a problem (with POVWIN) of this nature
(closing other apps windows).

Post a reply to this message

This might not be the answer but.......

I'v had a similar problem with another memory/cpu intensive piece of
software. I pulled out the ram chips and swapped them with another
machine. Problem fixed.

-- 
regards

Nathan O'Brien
no1### [at] no13net
http://www.no13.net


Philippe Debar wrote:
> 
> PPOVwin does strange things to other running applications when
> finishing/starting a rendering. This is specially visible and annoying when
> rendering an animation with many quick-traced frames.
> 
> Observed problems :
> + povwin steals or gives focus at each frame ;
> + povwin closes (not minimises or hides, but closes) other windows or
> applications (observed very often with winhelp, even other applications
> helps ; win explorer windows ; acdsee32 and display properties)
> + povwin prevents screensaver to start or interrupts screensaver (apparently
> randomly).
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>    POV INFO
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> POV-Ray for Windows
> Version 3.1.beta.6b.watcom.win32 [Pentium II optimised]
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>    SYSTEM INFO
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> MS Windows 95 4.00.950 B
> IE 4.0 4.711712.6
> Pentium Pro 233MHz
> 128MB RAM

Post a reply to this message

I don't know about your system, but mine wakes the computer (or prevents
power-saving mode) if there's HDD activity. If I render something regular,
the saver is not activated at all. If I do a
100000-glass-spheres-with-media-and-radiosity-aa0.0 scene and it takes more
than 15 min pre line, the saver activates and deactivates. My advice is,
turn off your monitor for overnight renders.

Peter

Post a reply to this message

Nathan O'Brien wrote in message <361349AC.1EFD788C@no13.net>...
>This might not be the answer but.......
>
>I'v had a similar problem with another memory/cpu intensive piece of
>software. I pulled out the ram chips and swapped them with another
>machine. Problem fixed.
>
>--
>regards
>
>Nathan O'Brien


Hey - I added 64MB - so maybe this is it (although I don't understand how).
Thanks... I'll try swapping my ram at the first occasion.


Philippe

Post a reply to this message

Hi!
Peter Popov wrote in message <36144c04.0@news.povray.org>...
>I don't know about your system, but mine wakes the computer (or prevents
>power-saving mode) if there's HDD activity. If I render something regular,
>the saver is not activated at all. If I do a
>100000-glass-spheres-with-media-and-radiosity-aa0.0 scene and it takes more
>than 15 min pre line, the saver activates and deactivates. My advice is,
>turn off your monitor for overnight renders.
>
>Peter


Of course, I always shut my monitor off for long renders (the computer is in
my sleeping room, and when the screen wakes up in the middle of the night, I
do also). I don't know if it is HDD activity that does it. The screensaver
does kick in when I use scan disk and messes the process. Also, it isn't
systematic : sometimes the screensaver works, sometimes it doesn't, and
sometimes it starts and wakes up for apparently no reasons... No doubt, I am
using windows 95 :-)

It isn't serious. It is barely annoying (well, it is when I am in a bad
mood). I just wanted to add this with the other weird behaviours of my
computer, as I thought it could be tied.

(I'd like to see that 100000-glass-spheres-with-media-and-radiosity-aa0.0
scene one day)

Povingly,


Philippe

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