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 Post subject: Nexus Dock stealing focus from Fullscreen Games
PostPosted: Sun Apr 29, 2018 3:05 am 
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I have recently installed Nexus Dock 18.3 onto my Windows 10 system. I have spent the last couple of days setting it up exactly how I want but I have encountered a problem that I can't seem to fix no matter the solutions I have tried from other forum posts.

I have nexus dock set to show all the time except over top of maximised windows but I have it set to come forward when I hit the edge.

I went to load up a game (Planet Coaster) from an icon on the desktop (not from nexus). The games settings are set up for 1280x720 where as my native resolution is 1920x1080.

As soon as the game loads, nexus steals focus from the game. If I click on the application from the nexus dock then it goes into the game for a split second then nexus steals focus away again and it goes back to desktop again. However if I ALT-TAB back to the game the issue does not occur, instead it seems to bypass Nexus dock stealing the focus.

It is very much a pain in the ass having nexus steal the focus away from the game initially before having to alt-tab back to the game again. WHY IS NEXUS stealing the focus away if the game is in a different resolution to native.

I have also download the foretester.exe file and ran that while checking what was happening. And indeed it does seem to be stealing focus from the game unless I use the ALT-TAB method.



After doing some research online I tried a few solution.

- Stop nexus dock from appearing on edge bump
- Told nexus dock to keep the dock below all other windows
- Toggled nearly every single option within nexus preferences to see if it was a particular setting that was causing the issue.
- If I change the game resolution to the same as my native resolution the issue does not occur. (This however means my game does not run well because of my pc specs, Planet coaster is a very intensive game specs wise and it runs at a shit framerate on this pc at native resolution.)


This issue is occuring on my Surface Pro 4 with the following specs

I7-6650U @ 2.2GHz
Intel Iris Graphics 540
8GB RAM


I have not attempted to replicate this problem on my main desktop PC atm although I do not think it will have any issue as I run the game at the same resolution as my native desktop resolution on that pc.

Thanks In Advance
Rayneman


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 Post subject: Re: Nexus Dock stealing focus from Fullscreen Games
PostPosted: Sun Apr 29, 2018 7:21 am 
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First of all, congratulations on the very detailed description of the problem and on having done the first troubleshooting options yourself.

I also think the issue is directly related to the change in screen resolution to run the game. Normally a change in screen resolution will cascade a series of events to make sure the dock fits on the new available screen space, etc...

However, this is prevented from happening if, after the change in screen resolution, Nexus detects a full screen application is running (e.g.; which normally would mean a game changed the screen resolution). It even waits half a second after a screen resolution change to make this test in order to give the game enough time to set itself up, etc...

For some reason it seems like its not detecting 'Planet Coaster' as a full screen game, so it proceeds to make a lot of changes which eventually steal focus away from the game.

One question: in the Position tab, are any of the 'Prevent maximized windows...' and 'Respect space reserved...' settings enabled? If so, try disabling them and let me know what happens, please.

Could you also try it with any other game that also changes screen resolution to see if the issue is just related to that particular game?

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 Post subject: Re: Nexus Dock stealing focus from Fullscreen Games
PostPosted: Sun Apr 29, 2018 8:03 am 
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@WINSTEP Thanks for the promptly reply.

winstep wrote:
One question: in the Position tab, are any of the 'Prevent maximized windows...' and 'Respect space reserved...' settings enabled? If so, try disabling them and let me know what happens, please.


Both of those options are disabled. The only options I have regarding position enabled are "Autohide for Maximized Applications", "Dock to screen edge" and both "Bring dock forward" options. Please see screenshot for details.

winstep wrote:
Could you also try it with any other game that also changes screen resolution to see if the issue is just related to that particular game?


I tried a few of other games
Borderlands (1280x720) - No Issue
Cities Skylines (1280x720) - No Issue but it appears as though CS runs in a Borderless window even when you have it set to Fullscreen
Surviving Mars (1280x720) - Replicated issue at first but then clicking on the dock icon went back into game no worries. Although then the game started having its own issues where it defaulted back to an 800x600 resolution and the problem could not be fixed unless I exited Nexus Dock, reloaded Surviving Mars and changed settings back again. Restarting Nexus Dock goes back to the start of the process.
Dead Island (1280x720) - No Issue
Amnesia The Dark Descent (1280x720) - No Issue
Guild of Dungeoneering - Unsure of resolution. Seems to only run in Borderless window. No Issue
Leisure Suit Larry Magna Cum Laude (Unknown 4:3 resolution cant be changed) - No Issue

From my testing of different games it appears that most of them are not having any effect. I am thoroughly bewildered by what is causing this issue... PLEASE HELP!!!


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 Post subject: Re: Nexus Dock stealing focus from Fullscreen Games
PostPosted: Sun Apr 29, 2018 8:29 am 
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Also the ALT-TAB method I mentioned in the OP does not work all the time... Sometimes while ALT-TABing back into the game it does the same issue with Nexus stealing the focus again.


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 Post subject: Re: Nexus Dock stealing focus from Fullscreen Games
PostPosted: Sun Apr 29, 2018 8:39 am 
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RaYneMan1186 wrote:
From my testing of different games it appears that most of them are not having any effect. I am thoroughly bewildered by what is causing this issue... PLEASE HELP!!!


Looks like something Planet Coaster is doing is causing the issue, then.

The only way to know for sure what is happening is to make a modified copy of nexus.exe that logs what is happening internally (as it's happening) to a log file, for me to review later.

But you will have to give me some time to do that.

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 Post subject: Re: Nexus Dock stealing focus from Fullscreen Games
PostPosted: Sun Apr 29, 2018 8:42 am 
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ok no worries... I am happy to wait... I love this dock and tried a couple of others before settling on Nexus... Will also plan on installing it on my partners computer as well... Like I said I don't think it will be an issue on my main desktop but it is a bug nonetheless... Will check it tomorrow and let you know...


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 Post subject: Re: Nexus Dock stealing focus from Fullscreen Games
PostPosted: Sun Apr 29, 2018 10:15 am 
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RaYneMan1186 wrote:
Like I said I don't think it will be an issue on my main desktop but it is a bug nonetheless...


It's not a bug.

The alternative, as it happens with some other applications, is you removing a monitor or changing your screen resolution and suddenly being unable to access the other application because it is now somewhere off screen.

Nexus makes sure this doesn't happen, if you do any of the above, any off-screen objects (in this case the dock) are automatically moved to a visible area and made to fit in that same visible area.

The problem is that Windows never provided a method for a (game) application to warn the rest of the system saying "here, I'm changing the screen resolution, but it's only a temporary thing while I run, so don't you do anything in the mean time'.

So, applications like Nexus are forced to 'guess', and if the game does unusual things like using different windows to launch and run the actual game, you can end up with Nexus guessing wrong. As you can see from the tests you made with the other games, it guessed right nearly all of the time.

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 Post subject: Re: Nexus Dock stealing focus from Fullscreen Games
PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2018 12:19 am 
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Just adding to the investigation... On my desktop computer where Planet Coaster does not change the resolution there is no issue at all.


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 Post subject: Re: Nexus Dock stealing focus from Fullscreen Games
PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2018 10:45 am 
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Yeah, I didn't think it would. :)

Problem is, you'll have to wait a little bit longer until I release the first beta of the next version (which you will have to install first) before I can send you a modified exe we can use to try to figure out what is going on.

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 Post subject: Re: Nexus Dock stealing focus from Fullscreen Games
PostPosted: Sat Nov 09, 2019 8:12 pm 
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Sorry for this thread resurrection from the dead.
I'm having a similar issue with a game named "Corpse party", and also another more recent game.

I'm using Nexus 19.2.
Has there been any progress on this issue?

Can nexus relocate/reposition itself upon resolution change without stealing any focus?

EDIT:
Hmm it's intermittent.
After I closed and reopened nexus it was working fine...
I'll try to have steps to reproduce


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 Post subject: Re: Nexus Dock stealing focus from Fullscreen Games
PostPosted: Sun Nov 10, 2019 9:26 pm 
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I got improved steps to reproduce.

I can consistently reproduce now.
What happens is:
1. I open "the other game" first
2. Nexus steals the focus and messes up this "other game"
3. Messes up as in, this "other game" switches to the desktop and its window is nowhere to be found. I can try to alt-tab back to the game, but to no avail. I have to kill the game process.
4. I now open the game "Corpse party"
5. This game too has its focus consistently stolen by Nexus

Now I restart Nexus.
1. If I open "Corpse party", there is no more issue anymore, focus stays with the game
2. If I open "the other game" then I experience focus stolen again
3. If I now re-open "Corpse party" then I have focus stolen again.

In other words, this "other game" seems to change the behavior of Nexus when it comes to future fullscreen games, and the fullscreen detection seems off to Nexus after that.

I cannot really tell you what this "other game" is, as this is not a normal game and is not available to the public.
But it's fullscreen (not borderless), and it polls the refresh rate of the screen to have extra timing precision for its framerate.
Anyway.

I still wonder if it would be possible for Nexus to re-position itself on screen res change without creating a focus on itself. Or if not possible, if we could have a way to disable this feature and leave the dock outside the viewport if needed.

For now, I will just close Nexus when I play this "other game"


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