Thread 'This is why not including a Window menu is a stupid idea.'

Message boards : Questions and problems : This is why not including a Window menu is a stupid idea.
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ProfileWizardling
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Message 61630 - Posted: 16 Apr 2015, 12:14:43 UTC

Mac OS X, BOINC v7.4.42. Once again I find myself stuck with the BOINC Manger window up above the top of the screen, so I cannot drag it back, nor can I use Window menu commands, as there helpfully is none in BOINC Manager for Mac - whose stupid idea was THAT?

I suppose I could force the issue by changing my monitor's resolution, and I guess lacking any other options I'll have to do that. But what a cock up! I now have to quit everything so other app's windows don't get squashed, and then much about with scree res, before restarting every app with windows that'll get screwed with :-(

Mid-2007 24" 2.8GHz iMac, 4GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256MB VRAM, OS X 10.6.8
"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us." - Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson)
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ProfileJord
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Message 61636 - Posted: 16 Apr 2015, 14:54:34 UTC - in response to Message 61630.  

Could you please mind your language?

I've forwarded your post to the developer, I'll leave it to his discretion to answer you.
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ProfileJord
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Message 61650 - Posted: 16 Apr 2015, 22:35:35 UTC

Okay, I got an answer from the developer.

Hi Jord,

I just tested this on my Mac. After quitting BOINC Manager, I forced the Event Log to be partly off screen (so the title bar is at vertical position -100) by editing the "[EventLog]" entry in the BOINC Manager Preferences file. This is used on the Mac instead of the registry on Windows and can be found at:
/Users/(username}/Library/Preferences/BOINC Manager Preferences

There is code in BOINC Manager which checks to ensure that the title bars of all windows are at least partly on screen and moves them there if necessary, and it did just what it as supposed to when I launched BOINC Manger. This code is there to guard against exactly the problem he says he is having.

I repeated the test, editing the preferences to move the Event Log completely off screen, and again the Manager moved it on screen when I launched it.

Now, we don't know what is wrong with your installation, but the standard thing to try first is to uninstall, download a new copy of the installer, install again. Just in case you got a corrupted download.

If that fails, you can try to delete the BOINC Manager Preferences file and start fresh with that. You can always edit that file by hand to fix the window position.
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ProfileWizardling
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Message 61652 - Posted: 17 Apr 2015, 0:52:29 UTC - in response to Message 61650.  
Last modified: 17 Apr 2015, 0:54:55 UTC

No need so far as I can tell, a resolution change got the BOINC Manager window's draggable titlebar back below the top of the screen, and it has now remembered it's new position.

It was just rather annoying to be urgently having to access BOINC Manager in such a way that I needed to move it's window, and the only way (I was aware of, at the time) to do so is close a dozen other important apps so their window layout isn't messed up by the resolution change.

Thus my irritated tone above. I'm sorry give I gave offence, but stuff like that where the developer has prevented common solutions like keyboard or menu commands to maximise the window by leaving all that out, has always rubbed me the wrong way, and I can be cranky when such flaws hit me late at night.

That said I'm a big distributed computing for science supporter. I was running SETI@home since 1999 before there even was BOINC, and transitioned to BOINC when SETI@home moved there, and then I added several other worthwhile projects :-)
"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us." - Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson)
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ProfileWizardling
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Message 62562 - Posted: 14 Jun 2015, 20:50:45 UTC - in response to Message 61652.  

Once again I face having to switch resolutions to recover from: [/img]
"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us." - Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson)
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ProfileGary Charpentier
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Message 62563 - Posted: 14 Jun 2015, 23:04:27 UTC
Last modified: 14 Jun 2015, 23:05:05 UTC

I echo the problem, it is totally irratinting that the default screen size of the build isn't smaller, by a few pixels, of the smallest native screen for Mac. It is easy for the user to make it bigger but damn near impossible to make it smaller when the controls to do that are off the display area! I've also seen the issue on BOINC windows where the developers insist you have a 16x9 screen, not a 4x3.

Just add the trivial lines of code to read the screen dimensions and set the default window accordingly on first run or install!
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Message boards : Questions and problems : This is why not including a Window menu is a stupid idea.

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