[PD] bringing the GEM fullscreen window to front in Windows: issue (a second gem window appears)

matteo sisti sette matteosistisette at gmail.com
Fri Jan 25 14:19:27 CET 2008


Hi Cyrille, thanks for your help.

> you're using windows?

Yep.

> have you try the [topmost $1< message to the gemwin? ($1 = 0 or 1)
> if it work, then it's probably easier than an external "switcher"

I didn't know about the topmost message!
However, I'm afraid I still need the "switcher". Turning GEM's
"topmost" on and off would be "weaker", i.e. I would need to ensure
that "just behind" GEM is the Flash Player; with the "switcher", I
always bring to front the needed application no matter who was on
front before; it is more reliable and more inmediate to launch
everything (without having to click on windows in a certain order to
make sure they are where they need to be)


> anyway, what's happen if you don't close the gemwin?
> you can close / reload your patch, but having the gemwin in an other
> patch so you don't have to close it.

The fact is that I don't need to reload the patch while I DO really
need to close the GEM window (i.e. destroy the gemwin) between one
rehearsal and another. Consider that the GEM window is fullscreen, so
I can't move it; also, if it was the last one to be brought to front
before the switcher was closed, the GEM window remains "permanently"
topmost, i.e. "always on front": unless I close it I can't see
anything else (e.g. the patch gui window, the windows desktop, etc.).
When I stop a rehearsal and start a new one I tipically need to check
out things on the patch GUI, and/or browse Windows folder and edit
text files that are later read by the patch. That's why I stop the
rehearsal at all: otherwise I would simply "go to" the beginning of
the performance (or to whichever part) which I can do without
restarting things at all.

I have oversimplified my setup in the description, in order not to
bother people with irrelevant details, but the "switcher" is indeed an
application that is doing other things as well; there are other
computers with other projections and with audio; and whenever I have
to restart the central "master" computer that controls the whole
system (which is not the computer we were talking about), I have to
restart the switcher and the flash player. In such situations, I don't
mind closing and reopening the GEM window (which I usually need as I
mentioned in order to "see and access" other things) but I wouldn't
need to restart/reload the patch and GEM, were it not for this
double-gem-window issue. So I'd like to avoid having to restart gem,
in order to reduce the number of operations needed to restart the
system to a minimum (switcher and flash player automatically quit when
the master quits, for example).

That's why I'm trying to figure out what's the reason of this
double-gem-window weirdness, in case there's a solution.


Thanks again
m.




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