ClinicOffice windows appearing behind other windows

[clinicoffice_user]

From my other thread, breaking this out for clarity.
@Support wrote:

We fixed an issue several months ago where COv4 could appear behind other windows …

I thought I’d document that I’m getting this issue in v1058, though you mentioned it was fixed before v1058. Some variants of this will cause confusion for everyday usage (see (2) and (3) below) and don’t have workarounds.

I am getting this issue in several ways

1. Most reproducible – launch CO via start menu, and it almost always appears behind another window (e.g. Explorer). If the sample DB was selected by default, the yellow balloon help appears on top of the other window such as Explorer (more detail below).

2. Less frequent – a CO editor window will not appear on top of other windows, but it did open OK, just not visibly

3. Less frequent – latter also happened just now with an Invoice report – I thought it had not opened OK but on looking at the Windows 7 taskbar I could see 2 windows, one of which was the invoice report preview window.

Issue (1) always happens like this, in more detail:

1. Click on another app such as Firefox so it’s top window
2. Launch CO via start menu via standard launcher
3. Splash screen appears over Firefox
4. Main CO screen appears over Firefox, under splash screen
5. Splash screen disappears
6. Very soon after (<1 sec), CO screen disappears - it has moved behind Firefox

This is happening almost all the time, but just now I had a case where it didn’t happen – but there were cases before and after this where it did happen. It’s possible that minimising then maximising the other app helped cause this to recur.)

In the sample DB case, the yellow balloon help/tooltip about the sample DB login appears on top even after step 6 – in fact I can see it on top of Chrome even while I’m using Chrome to type this paragraph! Admirably persistent 🙂 I just clicked on the yellow balloon help while Chrome had focus, and it brought CO to the front as you’d expect (and closed the balloon help of course).

If I set Process Explorer to be Always On Top, in a small window, then Chrome as the ‘normal’ top window, then launch CO with sample DB selected, what happens is that this balloon help appears on top of Process Explorer, and when I minimise that, appears on top of Chrome. In fact, I can click on many open apps in task bar, and the balloon help will always appear on top of them, until I bring CO to the front.

The issue isn’t dependent on the app that is currently showing when CO is launched – can be Chrome, Firefox, Process Explorer, etc.

I use a launch batch script to mitigate impact of (1), as follows:

a. Batch script runs and appears in window (set to appear as Normal window), launches CO
b. CO appears briefly as top window, then moves behind this window
c. Batch script ends, window closes, so CO window is in front

This seems to be quite a common problem with .NET apps, e.g. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/478295/tooltip-appearing-behind-the-form-window-c-vs-2008 http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3750144/status-messageboxes-going-behind-the-application http://stackoverflow.com/questions/192313/application-window-sent-behind-other-windows-on-closing-different-thread-c and http://stackoverflow.com/questions/869729/why-is-my-form-so-shy look interesting. http://stackoverflow.com/search?q=winforms+topmost may also be interesting, it appears to be a ‘who is topmost’ thing.

I’m using Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium, with a core i3 530 which appears as 4 cores in Windows 7 due to Intel hyperthreading. I’m happy to install a debug build if needed, as I’m still in customization mode before going live.

[Author]

Posts