Character count bubble keeps popping up after upgrading Firefox, IE, ....

[chaltain]

I've been using Clipboard Help+Spell for a little while, and I've been very impressed.  Recently though, I upgraded Firefox from 1.5 to 2.0, Internet Explorer from 6.0 to 7.0, AIM from 5.9 to 6.0 and JAWS for Windows from 7.1 to 8.0 and now the character count bubble keeps popping up every few seconds.  I reinstalled the latest version of CHS, but no luck.  I've looked around to see if Firefox or IE changed anything with respect to clipboard access or hot keys, but I haven't stumbled across anything yet.  Any ideas on what might be going on or where to look?

[mouser]

check your hotkeys in chs options to see if you have a common hotkey set to count characters.
try clearing it so no hotkey is set at all for count characters.

[chaltain]

I cleared the hot keys for character count, and I'm still having the same problem.

It only seems to happen when I have Firefox up or I'm viewing a message in Thunderbird, although I suspect I'd still see it running IE.  It also only happens when I run JFW 8.0.  If I go back to JFW 7.1, the problem doesn't occur, even leaving Firefox, IE and AIM at their current levels.

I've opened up a problem report with Freedom Scientific, the company that sells JFW.  JFW stands for JAWS for Windows and JAWS stands for Job Access With Speech.  I'm blind, and JAWS is a screen reading program that allows me to access the text on the screen using a speech synthesizer.

Any other ideas?  I've been searching for Clipboard Help+Speech for years, and I'd hate to have to give it up!

[mouser]

it has to be something REALLY simple for me to fix.  I'll try to fix or find it today..

Thank you for the nice words about Clipboard Help+Spell.  Keep in mind however that there are a lot of clipboard tools and youd be able to find another one you liked as well if you HAD to change (though as i said i surely can fix this issue quickly).

[chaltain]

Thanks, that would be great!

I know there are a lot of clipboard utilities out there, but I've literally spent years looking for a clipboard utility in Windows that was as easy to use as what I was used to with Emacs under Linux.  I'm sure I've tried close to a dozen utilities, freeware and shareware.  Being blind, the utility also has to be accessible, which limits the field a bit.  CHS literally does everything I want as easily as I want to do it!  Plus some of the more advanced features seem like they're worth looking into as well.

Good job, and if you find something to fix this problem, I would be so appreciative!

[mouser]

chaltain , I've posted a beta here: download chs beta 1.12.01

Can you try that and see if the problem persists.

If it does, try going into options and changing the display method to "Alert Box":



And then let me know how it behaves.  That will at least tell me if the problem is somehow with the hotkey detection or with balloon tips in general.

[chaltain]

OK, I'm giving the beta a try, and I'll let you know what I find out.

BTW, I did try changing the display option from a bubble to a dialog box, before you sent me the beta and the dialog box would poppup a few seconds after I cleared it by clicking on the OK button.

[chaltain]

Unfortunately the problem still persists with this most recent beta.

[mouser]

so just to confirm -
you are saying that even when you change the display type to "Alert Box", that you see alert boxes showing character count that keep popping up ever few seconds, and that this happens even when the character count hotkey set in hotkey page is blank or set to different values?

one other question:
when this bug isnt taking effect, do you see the character count also whenever you copy some text to the clipboard? or only when you use the count characters hotkey?

[chaltain]

When I set the display to "alert box", I'll get the dialog box popping up telling me the current character count in the clipboard.  If I click on the OK button, it'll pop back up in a few seconds.  If I don't click on the OK button, it'll just sit there.  Also, this happens even when I have the hot key field for character count cleared.

Before I upgraded JFW, AIM, Firefox and IE, I would only see the character count bubble when I used the hot key for the character count.  I wouldn't see it when I copied text to the clipboard.

[mouser]

i have a feeling its jaws - only because i have ie7 and ff (though i have 1.5 and not 2.0), but i still am baffled how any program can cause this.

one thing i want to check though:
1. can you set the count character hotkey to something strange, like ctrl+alt+h
2. and then see if it still happens, and see if you get a pop up every time you copy something new to the clipboard.

--

there are really only now 2 possibilities i can conceive of:
either 1) somehow some program is triggering the count character hotkey.
or 2) i have code somewhere that has as an option to show count character display on every copy.  this seems most likely (and would make sense that jaws might be doing it) but i can't find that option in my program.

if you tell me that every time you copy something new to the clipboard you see the pop up right away, then #2 will seem like the problem and i will focus back on that.

[chaltain]

Well, sorry for the delay in responding, but I got distracted and ended up staying away from the PC for a little bit.

In messing around with the hot keys, I ended up with the situation where CHS would keep popping up, as if the hot key for Capture/View/Spell was being pressed over and over again.  Note that I don't think I'd set a hot key for Capture/View/Spell.

After this, I went in and explicitly set a hot key for each function, i.e. Capture/View/Spell, Character count, Add a quick note, ....  Once I did this, all of the problems went away, and everything started to behave normally, as before.

I'm guessing that I had some strange invisible character set as a hot key, like maybe a blank space, and either I was typing it a lot, or JFW as somehow sending it to CHS whenever I was in a web page.

I'm happy now, although still curious, so if there's anything you want me to investigate, just let me know.

[mouser]

chaltain , that's a huge clue - thank you.  i will check into it more.. it sounds like i was sort of on the right track but missed the mark - your clue should let me solve it in the next release 

[HelpFairy]

I registered on this forum to hopefully answer the original question.
I found this thread looking for the answer to the stupid find box and counter bubble popping up.

Playing around with the browser (MFirefox) I fixed it.

Click on the options icon > click more tab > uncheck first two options (Highlight Search Items & word find)

Yey !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!