Vista; Mission Critical Applications and How I Accidentally Nuked the World
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This is a Rant Question. Let's say you are a Nuclear Launch Officer in an underground bunker in South Dakota, and for safe keeping, you are emailing the current launch codes to your grandmother. You have your email open and decide to click the icon to start the "Ballistic Ordinance Operations Managment" (BOOM) application, which takes a moment... so you go back to the email and start typing to grandma. Just as you start typing the launch codes, the BOOM application jumps in front and your typing goes into THAT application instead. You don't notice until you hit enter... Is there a way to control this serious Z-Order problem in Windows? (Vista, in particular, I guess). It is one of the most serious barriers for use in applications where unexpected consequences can be severe. Thanks!
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This is a Rant Question. Let's say you are a Nuclear Launch Officer in an underground bunker in South Dakota, and for safe keeping, you are emailing the current launch codes to your grandmother. You have your email open and decide to click the icon to start the "Ballistic Ordinance Operations Managment" (BOOM) application, which takes a moment... so you go back to the email and start typing to grandma. Just as you start typing the launch codes, the BOOM application jumps in front and your typing goes into THAT application instead. You don't notice until you hit enter... Is there a way to control this serious Z-Order problem in Windows? (Vista, in particular, I guess). It is one of the most serious barriers for use in applications where unexpected consequences can be severe. Thanks!
Hi, I like that question. And I am sure it is not Vista specific. It happens inside a window too, you want to click an item in a ListBox, a ListView, what have you, and it starts to scroll just when you click. What might be kind of a solution is some extra code that discards all user input that occurs within a certain time period (say 1 second) since the visible parts of the target Control changed in any way. :) PS: don't forget to post the same at www.boom.com PS2: I trust the official answer will be all critical points have an "Are you sure? Yes/No/Cancel" confirmation dialog...
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]
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Hi, I like that question. And I am sure it is not Vista specific. It happens inside a window too, you want to click an item in a ListBox, a ListView, what have you, and it starts to scroll just when you click. What might be kind of a solution is some extra code that discards all user input that occurs within a certain time period (say 1 second) since the visible parts of the target Control changed in any way. :) PS: don't forget to post the same at www.boom.com PS2: I trust the official answer will be all critical points have an "Are you sure? Yes/No/Cancel" confirmation dialog...
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Luc Pattyn wrote:
PS2: I trust the official answer will be all critical points have an "Are you sure? Yes/No/Cancel" confirmation dialog...
Yes, I'm sure you are right. I just used a silly example to make a point and such a dialog does not deal with the spectrum of issues/problems with assuming top Z order. Thanks!
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Hi, I like that question. And I am sure it is not Vista specific. It happens inside a window too, you want to click an item in a ListBox, a ListView, what have you, and it starts to scroll just when you click. What might be kind of a solution is some extra code that discards all user input that occurs within a certain time period (say 1 second) since the visible parts of the target Control changed in any way. :) PS: don't forget to post the same at www.boom.com PS2: I trust the official answer will be all critical points have an "Are you sure? Yes/No/Cancel" confirmation dialog...
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]
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Vista has some other nasty issues. This time let's talk about missed clicks. Given two brands of laptops, HP and Toshiba, both with Vista Home Premium, with identical symptoms which suggests it is Vista itself... Scenario 1: You click. Nothing happens. Scenario 2: You click to close an app... nothing seems to happen, and, because of Scenario 1, you click again... then "blink", "blink",... two apps closed. Depending on the nature of the apps, there can be significant impact and loss of business (user was taking an order, an engineer was making a process change, ...). Not real great for supporting business critical applications.
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Vista has some other nasty issues. This time let's talk about missed clicks. Given two brands of laptops, HP and Toshiba, both with Vista Home Premium, with identical symptoms which suggests it is Vista itself... Scenario 1: You click. Nothing happens. Scenario 2: You click to close an app... nothing seems to happen, and, because of Scenario 1, you click again... then "blink", "blink",... two apps closed. Depending on the nature of the apps, there can be significant impact and loss of business (user was taking an order, an engineer was making a process change, ...). Not real great for supporting business critical applications.
I only recently started using Vista Home Premium (on a Dell Inspiron) and I can confirm scenario 2 seems to occur. Not sure yet under which conditions. Of course decent applications would refuse to close a dirty window without confirmation... That is what the Closing event is for after all. :)
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I only recently started using Vista Home Premium (on a Dell Inspiron) and I can confirm scenario 2 seems to occur. Not sure yet under which conditions. Of course decent applications would refuse to close a dirty window without confirmation... That is what the Closing event is for after all. :)
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Luc Pattyn wrote:
Of course decent applications would refuse to close a dirty window without confirmation... That is what the Closing event is for after all.
Few applications are "decent" and even MSFT's own IE7 will just close. These days many people are using browsers for order entry, process control interfaces, etc. If I were to hit the X button in the upper right just now, either this comment would be lost, or, if the defect was on my side at the moment, nothing would happen. This suggests that applications must account for operating system defects. How can one build reliable applications if the operating system itself is defective?
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Luc Pattyn wrote:
Of course decent applications would refuse to close a dirty window without confirmation... That is what the Closing event is for after all.
Few applications are "decent" and even MSFT's own IE7 will just close. These days many people are using browsers for order entry, process control interfaces, etc. If I were to hit the X button in the upper right just now, either this comment would be lost, or, if the defect was on my side at the moment, nothing would happen. This suggests that applications must account for operating system defects. How can one build reliable applications if the operating system itself is defective?
CarlMCook wrote:
Few applications are "decent" and even MSFT's own IE7 will just close.
I agree.
CarlMCook wrote:
applications must account for operating system defects.
We all know there are hundreds or even thousands of bugs in an Operating System as complex as Windows XP or Vista. And a lot of "unfortunate features" and missing functionality. So yes it is the application developer's responsibility to come up with either a sufficiently good, or maybe the best possible, application notwithstanding the OS deficiencies.
CarlMCook wrote:
using browsers for order entry, process control interfaces, etc.
Sure. And I currently see but two ways to succeed: - rely on the users being aware software isn't perfect (or far from it), so they have learned to live with it; if they happen to use PC banking, they will know the limitations and oddities. - provide your own application and have it include a specialized browser (I have some experience building on top of the WebBrowser control). :)
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CarlMCook wrote:
Few applications are "decent" and even MSFT's own IE7 will just close.
I agree.
CarlMCook wrote:
applications must account for operating system defects.
We all know there are hundreds or even thousands of bugs in an Operating System as complex as Windows XP or Vista. And a lot of "unfortunate features" and missing functionality. So yes it is the application developer's responsibility to come up with either a sufficiently good, or maybe the best possible, application notwithstanding the OS deficiencies.
CarlMCook wrote:
using browsers for order entry, process control interfaces, etc.
Sure. And I currently see but two ways to succeed: - rely on the users being aware software isn't perfect (or far from it), so they have learned to live with it; if they happen to use PC banking, they will know the limitations and oddities. - provide your own application and have it include a specialized browser (I have some experience building on top of the WebBrowser control). :)
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]
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Luc Pattyn wrote:
We all know there are hundreds or even thousands of bugs in an Operating System as complex as Windows XP or Vista.
... and thus, I guess, when an operating system cannot properly and reliably handle the lowly mouse click, it should not be used for business, and certainly not for Mission Critical Applications (the point of my whining rant question). Adoption by business is limited. Is Microsoft in essence abandoning end-user business systems, exclusively targeting users that just send baby pictures to grandma?
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Luc Pattyn wrote:
We all know there are hundreds or even thousands of bugs in an Operating System as complex as Windows XP or Vista.
... and thus, I guess, when an operating system cannot properly and reliably handle the lowly mouse click, it should not be used for business, and certainly not for Mission Critical Applications (the point of my whining rant question). Adoption by business is limited. Is Microsoft in essence abandoning end-user business systems, exclusively targeting users that just send baby pictures to grandma?
CarlMCook wrote:
Is Microsoft in essence abandoning end-user business systems, exclusively targeting users that just send baby pictures to grandma?
I trust MS considers both markets important. They are selling through all kinds of channels. :)
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]
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