G'day again mouser,
I'm still looking for that dedicated area for "Mouser's Media Browser" threads.
Bug reports and suggestions are two separate topics and I have things that I wish to say in both areas and would really like to keep them separate (As a person who likes to browse this forum for good reads {I've found many.}, it's nice to be able to read in the area that interests one when I find myself here... I like to sometimes only look at suggestions for features, and some times I wonder what has gone wrong with a piece of software {Often just user inexperience, or trying to get the software to do something beyond it's design, but both are informative if nothing else.}, and personally I do appreciate that software, especially untested by users will contain bugs/anomalies that just weren't expected by the developer.). I'm sure other readers of this forum appreciate these distinctions in thread contents when they are having a browse here.).
I came here today and reread my previous post on "Mouser's Media Browser" and have more results from testing a little further into it's behavior regarding how it hides everything (Not exactly true, but what I posted before is precisely what happened on that occasion.)
I was going to offer a feature suggestion (My primary reason for coming to this thread in the first place.), but on that reread I decided to see if I was mistaken in some manner about the behavior that I previously posted about, and on further testing, I must say that there are some peculiarities as to how this program operates in the stay on top mode.
I have it running as I type this, in 'On Top' mode (Not full screen, though!
) and I do have the 'Options Dialog' open and neither the main window nor the options dialog are in sight at all... ¿ (Using Firefox v45.0.). It WAS on top, and when I clicked on a visible portion of Firefox, it moved behind Firefox... And does so with other programs as well, so it seems... As long as the options dialog is open. If however the 'About Dialog' is open, it does stay on top and definitely on top of the 'About Dialog' as well and in that situation there is no way to dismiss the dialog if it is totally obscured by the main window as all the buttons, menus and resizing options (Via grabbing the edges.) on the main window do not work and NO functionality is available to the main window. The 'On Top' functionality seems to have been totally passed to the 'About Dialog', although it remains hidden by the main window.
I am not a programmer but from my understanding of calls to windows functions, this is not how they are to operate, if that is what you are using to generate the on top behavior and not your own code, in either case though, I suspect that you have omitted some error trapping code that should be placing the 'About Dialog' on top of the main window, so that it's various dismissal buttons are accessible and it can exit cleanly and return function to the main window. Ditto with the 'Options Dialog' as I only was able to exit out of that dialog because I could see part of it, click it and have it come to the front (The main window did still retain it's functionality in this circumstance though.).
On this occasion, though I am happy to say that the pop up menus of other programs that I have running and visible in my taskbar are not obscured as they were on that previous occasion. It must have been a one off conflict of some sort. The same thing with "Mousers Media Browser's" own pop up menus from both the taskbar and the notification tray; These are all visible and fully functional. (NOTE: I had overlooked stating, in my previous post, that I did try to exit via the last menu item from the pop up menu, accessible via the notification tray's icon for "Mouser's Media Browser". I have added a rider to that effect in my previous post at the bottom of it.)
The inconsistency of this particular behavior is the sort of thing that is most annoying to anyone trying out a new, to them, piece of software as it is hard to fathom what should and what should not be occurring and what can be done if, as that which occurred in my previous case, occurs to them and there seems to be no remedy other than a reboot. Was it a real flaw in the new program they are trialing or some conflict with other running software. Hidden windows, when they effect functionality are a _huge_ PITP [Pain-In-The-Posterior]!
I only go on about this at length because I feel that there is something amiss here and I would really like "Mouser's Media Browser" to become a slightly more functional program (With great regard to what it is attempting to be... No need to reinvent the wheel, so to speak.), without any flaws and thus be taken up by many visitors to DonationCoder as a very useful tool and thus one that it would be a pleasure for you to provide increased functionality for, as it has a strong user base of happy individuals. To this regard, I suspect that any occurrences like I previously have talked about, needs rectification at the outset so that the code that you build upon is robust and bullet proofed to the maximum. I certainly appreciate programs that display these traits (Consistency and robustness.), way more than programs that have a myriad of features.
I have a few suggestions like I stated earlier as to extra features and I especially anticipate the inclusion of the, as your own listed:- 'Detail's-view Mode' feature; But as an optional extra panel rather than a replacement of either the filmstrip or grid view. I already have it installed as a tool in "Screeenshot Captor", a program that I use a lot and really appreciate for it's feature list (Though I have suggestions in that area also.), and a details view is something I would also very much like to see there as well, but if it only were ever to be available via "Mouser's Media Browser" then that would perhaps suffice. I don't know how reusable code is from one program to the next but if you build it and bullet proof it here first then maybe (Hopefully.), it may see the light of day in "Screeenshot Captor" also at some point. I do also have it installed elsewhere as a secondary, ancillary browseable menu within other graphics programs and generally in other tools, also for the same provided function. I prefer to only have single instances of any program running at a time as to avoid confusion between what I may be doing in one instance as opposed to another and I frequently find that a second means of navigating my directories and files is something that I appreciate, especially if it is a lean, dedicated to one job type of affair that I may employ at those time.
Once more a lengthy post, but hopefully one that will spur you on to great things with this particular program. It is a type of tool that I always look out for in my trawling's of the web, and more specifically, it has the rudiments of a program that I have been looking for for a very long time, (Actually it is the _exact_ program that I have been hunting for, and now that I have it, I have become aware of how much more it could be considering it's own potential capabilities to carry other programs/tools along for the ride as you already provide in many of your other programs and you have made one allowance for already within it. - More needed at this end.), so I hope you will understand my lengthy posting.
All the best and hopefully there will soon be a dedicated "Mouser's Media Browser" section within the DonationCoder forums. At that point my two posts here could be made a separate thread allowing this to be the main link and announcements page, consistant with the remainder of the site.
And actually, I haven't mentioned any of the features that I initially intended too. Next time. {I'll make a list... so I don't forget.}
Cheers,
MikleB
