Please fix BOINC.

BOINC version 6.x implements the screensaver differently than BOINC 5.x. The BOINC screensaver is produced by the BOINC project and, as far as I know, it has been updated to 6.x requirements. However, the projects you attach to also send screensavers. Some projects have not updated their screensaver to the 6.x standard. If you tried to run a 5.x screensaver on 6.x then that is most likely your problem. Please check with the projects you are running on that computer and ask them to update their screensaver. Or just turn the screensaver off, it's more trouble than it's worth.

Hi Lightsttn1

When the Trac pages recognise that I should already be logged on there, or allow me to log on again without sending me to a 'Forbidden' page, I'll look again at what (if anything) has happened as a result of what I said in Trac ticket #147. That was where I explained your request for an option to enlarge the text size in the BOINC manager to the BOINC developers.

To check on what's happened I need to read the BOINC 6 milestone page which only seems to be viewable by people who've logged on.........

I'll post back in this thread when I've been able to check on that.

Mo

Hi. Why not make BOINC's GUI to be text size addressable as per the users WindowsXP-SP2 Pro (32-bit), or other Win O/S's, so the BOINC GUI would change text , and graphic size in reference to the Windows settings of the user? Thus all would be easily able to read the GUI, and Graphic screens. A lot of companies haven't yet fixed there programs to allow for user setting VIA Windows settings in the Graphics Display Properties to re-size the GUI text, and pictures as per the Windows settings. I keep telling those companies they need to make there programs FULLY HANDICAPPED ACCESSIBLE. That also means Accessible for those who have older systems like mine, and to work with vision impairment. I have, but don't actively run my screen reader/magnifier as it uses too much CPU resources. I don't see an excuse for not complying. I know it will take some work to make it all work. You finally created in BOINC 5.10.13 a GUI that works, so far with no problems. All you need to do now is update to give Full Accessibility to the user. You need to remember that some of your users still have older machines, and make the GUI so it will be addressable to the needs of the user so they can have continued participation in the BOINC projects. Thank You for listening, and I hope you can make the needed fixes to your BOINC GUI.

[quote]Hi. James here again. What's A Trac ticket, and how is it going to work for me as per the problems I have noted in earlier posts in this thread? Basically, How do I use Trac tickets? I don't understand your post otherwise. You say that's what you asked for in the Trac. What did you ask for in the created Trac ticket? Where's the link please? Thank you for your time.

Trac is Berkeley's storage system for bugs reports, feature requests, client/server code and documentation.

What Mo did was reopen a ticket that was closed.

It's here...

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/ticket/147

If you register for the Trac system here...

https://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/register

(all you need is a user name and password, email is optional), then you can add your experiences using the manager to the ticket Mo reopened.

In my heart, I believe the developers are willing to try to work with those who use accessibility software. When the new grid based interface was introduced, it was brought to the developers' attention that the interface didn't work with screen readers. That problem was rectified by making the old style manager an option as an "accessible view".

Hope this helps.

Hi. Nope! I don't block Cookies. I do however weed them out to get rid of those I don't want. That is done automatically by my Internet Security Suite program. The page your site moderator sent me to that had this poste looks to work OK now. Please Note! This is my first visit to as the Moderator said to an updated forum setup. I hope the problem with the order of message display will not return. If so, "I'll be back" Thank You.

HI. James here again. Nope! Just something wrong with the new BOINC pages. I didn't have the problem with the old pages. Thank You.

[quote]I selected "Show most recent post as first" in my setup for the message boards. When I open the message boards it shows the opposite selection in the window, and likewise the listing starts with showing the oldest post first instead of the newest post first. This didn't happen in the older BOINC message boards. Can you fix it? Thanks for your assist.

Newest first worked for me. Are you preventing cookies?

I selected "Show most recent post as first" in my setup for the message boards. When I open the message boards it shows the opposite selection in the window, and likewise the listing starts with showing the oldest post first instead of the newest post first. This didn't happen in the older BOINC message boards. Can you fix it? Thanks for your assist.

Newest first worked for me. Are you preventing cookies?

With a service install in vista (perhaps in BOINC version 6), can it be installed as "Automatic (delayed start)" instead of "automatic"? This will hold off starting the service until all the regular services have loaded, thus reducing the impact on the system when rebooting or from turning it on. Also, you can further reduce system impact in Vista by having the BOINC apps run with "low I/O priority" and "low memory priority". This will give greater priority to tasks the system and the user are running. Lastly, is it possible to have the task auto restart if it unexpectedly stops? I see it as an option that you can manually set, but I do not know if programs can set this when they are installed.

I have made you a ticket in Trac, TM. See ticket #393.

I have a minor eye-wash issue.

When you boot and BOINC Manager is loaded, the B-icon is present in the system tray in WinXP. However, it does not have a title, so it soon disappears.

I like to have it always showing. If it had a title, I could set my preferences once and forget it.

--Fred

That's what I asked for in the Trac ticket and I included a link to this thread. You can if you wish create a Trac account and add your comments to the Trac ticket I reopened.

James, does the Windows magnifier tool work for you when you're looking at the BOINC manager? I think it's supposed to work for anything at all that shows on the screen. I know it's not the best tool in the world because you get a split screen (magnified and unmagnified), but I have XP and I could use it to look at the BOINC manager.

Hi James

Mo here from CPDN. I agree that the matter of text size within the BOINC manager can a problem. I will be asking other people who are more technically competent than me whether we should request such a feature in a BOINC Trac ticket.

I contacted one of our CPDN members who used to have a visual impairment to ask him how he managed then. He replied

Yes that has always been a problem and there is no short solution. The only way it can be fixed would be for the BOINC team to do a complete rewrite using a different set of GUI tools (the likelihood that that will happen is nil, I think they are using WxGTK for the GUI which is cross-platform). The only thing that I can offer is for the gentleman to either use the "Magnifier" tool located under "Programs/Accessories/Accessibility", or, use a third party program that offers the same functionality as "BOINC Manager", but specifically written using standard "MS Windows" GUI tools.

I asked Thyme Lawn who's a cpdn moderator for his opinion on those suggestions before I posted here. Thyme replied

It seems fine to me, with one minor change. BOINC uses wxWidgets (but GTK does underlie that for Linux and MacOS).

As far as monitoring goes, the only third party tool I've used is BoincView. I tried setting Windows to use large fonts and the information grid stayed at the original size. I've not tried any of the web applications listed at the bottom of the BOINC add-ons page, but BoincPHP5-GUI or Boinc LCS might be worth investigation.

I don't think Boinc LCS would be worth trying because you would need a webserver.

I tried using the Windows magnifier tool available in XP. Have you tried it? It wasn't the most convenient tool I've ever used.

* I could only magnify x2 because x3 or greater began to break up the letters and numbers. But even x2 actually made everything appear 4 times larger.

* The magnified version only occupied the top half of the screen and I couldn't find any way to use the full screen for the magnified view. If it, or some similar utility, could be used full-screen it would be pretty good.


Have you seen the Windows help page about accessibility?

http://www.microsoft.com/enable/

To tell the truth, the only simple solution they seem able to offer that you don't have to pay for is to decrease the pixel resolution of your screen. They say this will make the letters SEEM larger. I haven't tried this out yet.

Mo

From ticket 147:

Comment by Rom Walton;
"I have modified the manager so that if it detects a screen reader it'll automatically change to the Advanced GUI list view which is accessibility enabled.

We have a work item for 6.0 to make the Simple GUI accessible."

In any case, I can reopen the ticket and you can add to it. Just say when.

Thanks for the Trac link which I wasn't aware of. From that ticket it looks as if Rom has already implemented this (in 5.10.20 or waiting for v.6?). In which case I don't think I could add anything extra. Rom has chosen the solution of enabling the use of screen readers rather than making a new option to enlarge the font size within BOINC manager.

Rom's solution doesn't help James though because his computer seems too old/not powerful enough to run a screen reader program. I wonder whether the real problem when James uses his ZoomText program, which slows the computer almost to a standstill, might not be the limited 600MHz CPU but too little RAM? It might be worth investigating how much RAM the computer currently has and whether it could support more. An extra memory card isn't very expensive and slotting it in can be a do-it-yourself job at home, perhaps done by a friend.

On the other hand, if the problem is the computer's limited graphics capability, adding RAM might not help. James, it might be worth comparing your ZOOM Text's minimum requirements with what your computer has.

Have you tried the accessible view of the advanced manager? If you're in the simple GUI then click on the button for the advanced GUI and select the accessible view from the view pull down menu.

The failure of the GUI to stay resized is a known bug. Selecting file-exit seems to help some.

I upgraded my BOINC Manager to v5.10.13 a week or two ago. Since then I have been getting MSVCR80.DLL errors whenever there is a DOS box present.

I am running Windows ME. Running 'COMMAND' to get to DOS, or a DOS app (such as ZTtreeWin) or a DOS window project such as RieselSieve and then moving the mouse over that window results in an MSVCR80.DLL error. When I click on OK, there is another error usually involving a file name that is made up of non-alphanumeric characters (boxes, vertical bars, etc.). I then have to power off and on to get back control.

I can repeatedly recreate this problem when BoincManager is running. I can even suspend the running projects and the problem occurs. It does not seem to matter which projects I have active.

I cannot repeat the problem when BoincManager is not running.

I was running a quite old version of the Boinc Manager before - I cannot remember having upgraded it for many months. (It certainly did not have that buggy circular disk usage display.)

I have been running a variety of Boinc projects on this PC for at least 18 months. It has DirectX v9.0c

Since the problem started, I have installed a virus scanner (GriSoft's AVG) and checked with SpyBot - all clean.

This is my main PC so I am working on it all day doing a variety of things, but typically running Firefox and OpenOffice.org documents. I can reproduce the problem straight after a reboot before running anything else.