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 Post subject: Workshelf seems to conflict with Microsoft Outlook 2016
PostPosted: Fri Jul 06, 2018 11:24 am 
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Joined: Fri Jul 06, 2018 10:55 am
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Hi,

I have a horizontal workshelf that autohides across the top of my main monitor. it has worked flawlessly for years (and still does). But I've noticed since the most recent update to Xtreme that it does not play well with MS Outlook (or Outlook does not play well with Xtreme anymore :roll: ).

When the workshelf is running, I open Outlook and it goes fullscreen as usual and without any issues. I can then double-click on a message to view it - the message also goes fullscreen without any issues. I then close the message.

When I open either the same message or another one in the message list, the message does not appear in the same place as the previous one. It is almost as if some sort of "margin" is being reserved by the Xtreme Workshelf - the result is that the new message is shifted down the screen, roughly by the height of a window titlebar.

Repeating this process results in each newly opened message shifting further and further down the screen. If I try and drag the message window back to the correct place just below the workshelf, the message window is no longer maximised and it jumps down to where it was previously, with a large "margin" above it.

However, if I close the workshelf, then MS Outlook works flawlessly again, displaying opened messages as expected. If I then start the workshelf, Outlook message windows are displaced down the screen again.

Outlook is the only application that I have noticed exhibiting this issue. Unfortunately, it means I have to keep my workshelf closed.

I've included some screengrabs to show the vertical shifting. I hope this all makes sense :)

Any suggestions / ideas please?

Thanks,
Mike

P.S. I'm running Windows 10 Pro 64-bit v.10.0.17134 build 17134, dual monitors with Xtreme versions: Workshelf.exe v18.05.1320, Winstep.exe v18.03.0116


Attachments:
04 - Outlook message open third time.png
04 - Outlook message open third time.png [ 12.24 KiB | Viewed 13260 times ]
03 - Outlook message open second time.png
03 - Outlook message open second time.png [ 9.68 KiB | Viewed 13260 times ]
02 - Outlook message open first time.png
02 - Outlook message open first time.png [ 10.41 KiB | Viewed 13260 times ]
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 Post subject: Re: Workshelf seems to conflict with Microsoft Outlook 2016
PostPosted: Fri Jul 06, 2018 12:27 pm 
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Well, never heard of anything like this happening before. Microsoft seems to be coming up with more and more interesting ways to completely mess up their products lol

One question though, to determine whose fault it really is: when a message has already been displaced down the screen, what happens if you maximize *some other* application?

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 Post subject: Re: Workshelf seems to conflict with Microsoft Outlook 2016
PostPosted: Fri Jul 06, 2018 1:46 pm 
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Joined: Fri Jul 06, 2018 10:55 am
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Thanks for the quick reply :D

All other applications I've tried work fine - hence my tongue-in-cheek when I said the issue lies with the workshelf :shock: I'm sure it is Outlook as it is the only application that behaves this way.

Then again, Outlook is the only application I have that opens multiple windows in the way it does. Tabbed windows work fine in maximised applications (Google Chrome, MS Edge, JetBrains PhpStorm, etc...) and other applications are fine when maximised, just Outlook exhibits this issue.

I suppose the idea might be to see if anyone else has experienced this issue - at least it would highlight a common conflict or narrow it down to my configuration.

I'm not suggesting that you consider working out a hack for Outlook, but rather be aware of the issue. I can't sensibly think why this would happen other than Mickeysoft employing hacks within Outlook (I can't imagine that *ever* happens).

By the way, I've tried limiting the programs that run at system startup, closing running programs in the system tray area, running some but not others, etc... and Outlook behaves the same in all situations.

Thanks again :) Great product(s) by the way!


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 Post subject: Re: Workshelf seems to conflict with Microsoft Outlook 2016
PostPosted: Fri Jul 06, 2018 2:14 pm 
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Well, I still use Outlook 2003 (!) lol, so I have no such issues. :wink:

Seems to me MS Outlook 2016 programmers failed to take into consideration the possibility of someone having an appbar reserving screen space at the top of the screen, which is a totally rookie mistake.

Something else for your to try (and then let me know, please): temporarily undock the Shelf then drag your Windows taskbar from the bottom to the top of the screen (make sure it is NOT set to auto-hide). The Windows taskbar at the top of the screen will do the same the Shelf does (i.e.; reserve screen space for itself), so lets see how Outlook reacts in that case.

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 Post subject: Re: Workshelf seems to conflict with Microsoft Outlook 2016
PostPosted: Fri Jul 06, 2018 3:02 pm 
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It's surprising over the years how many applications were badly written in so far as their playing nice with appbars.

I tried what you suggested - I undocked the dock and shelf + removed auto-hide, moved them around the screen, moved the Windows taskbar to the top - and guess what? Exactly the same thing happened, as you anticipated.

Then I moved the taskbar back to the bottom edge of the screen whilst leaving the dock and shelf floating, and Outlook behaves itself.

So it looks like it is poor coding within Outlook :lol:

My workaround seems to be a dock fixed to the top edge of the screen, set to auto-hide and stop using a shelf on monitor 1 (I've moved it to monitor 2). The shelf is reserving the screen real-estate anyway, so I can live with this for now.

I'm not going to hold my breath for a Mickeysoft fix though :roll:

Thanks for all your input! :)


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 Post subject: Re: Workshelf seems to conflict with Microsoft Outlook 2016
PostPosted: Fri Jul 06, 2018 3:50 pm 
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Techie42 wrote:
So it looks like it is poor coding within Outlook :lol:


Yep. But with the same thing happening with the Windows taskbar docked at the top of the screen, at least now you have strong ammunition to 'harass' Microsoft about it lol.

It's funny, I remember a story - I think told by Raymond Chen - where MS initially wanted to put the taskbar at the top of the screen (like the Mac horizontal menu) when they were developing Win95, but ended up deciding against it because so many applications opened their windows at (0,0) or ended up creeping up the screen and under the taskbar.

EDIT: Found it, HERE is the blog entry I am talking about. :)

Thing is: it's not clear, but you made it sound like it didn't happen before? Or did you only start using Outlook 2016 recently?

Something else you could do: prevent the Shelf from reserving screen space (which will allow other windows to cover it) but enable screen edge bump activation to make up for this.

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 Post subject: Re: Workshelf seems to conflict with Microsoft Outlook 2016
PostPosted: Fri Jul 06, 2018 4:36 pm 
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winstep wrote:
Techie42 wrote:
So it looks like it is poor coding within Outlook :lol:


Yep. But with the same thing happening with the Windows taskbar docked at the top of the screen, at least now you have strong ammunition to 'harass' Microsoft about it lol.

It's funny, I remember a story - I think told by Raymond Chen - where MS initially wanted to put the taskbar at the top of the screen (like the Mac horizontal menu) when they were developing Win95, but ended up deciding against it because so many applications opened their windows at (0,0) or ended up creeping up the screen and under the taskbar.

EDIT: Found it, HERE is the blog entry I am talking about. :)

LOL! Yeah, that brings back memories. Also, MS had seen betas of OS/2 Warp 4 with its top-default 'Warp Bar' and wanted to have something similar. They had already reverse engineered the NeXT Workspace Manager and used huge chunks of that (later this was settled out of court and MS got a license, thanks to old Bill and 'St' Steve being mates)but didn't really have the expertise to fully exploit it. Thus, Windows is stuck with a basically quite shitty taskbar that's best kept at the bottom of the screen. Now compare that with the far greater versatility of the NextSTART taskbar! :)

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 Post subject: Re: Workshelf seems to conflict with Microsoft Outlook 2016
PostPosted: Fri Jul 06, 2018 5:04 pm 
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I've seen sooooooooo many programs over the years that have miscalculated the working area of a screen, both in single and multi-monitor setups. I remember one that provided a tabbed & docked area on the right-side of a screen - it completely fouled-up so many programs, but nothing to do with how it was written: the other programs did not expect it to be there (a lot of devs never knew what an appbar was, let alone saw one)! :lol:

I've been using MS Outlook 2016 for nearly as long as it's been available; this "issue" has only arisen within the last few weeks, coinciding with one of Mickeysoft's Windows 10 seasonal updates that is supposed to fix things (but only adds new features which break existing features).

Ho hum, I suppose I should go and let the Mickeysoft devs know that they've screwed up / enhanced yet another thing :lol: :lol:


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