Display bug in FrameMaker 7.2

[Combs, Richard]

Maries, Anthony wrote:
 
> If you have two documents open in the same window, when you select the
> second from the Window menu the first is minimised and the second is
> displayed occupying the full window.
> 
> When you switch back to the first, the normal behaviour is for the
second
> window to be minimised and for the first to re-open, but only occupy
about
> half the window.
> 
> In the last couple of days the first window opens in part of the
window,
> but
> the second document still displays in the window. The second document
> display is not actually active, and can be suppressed by making a
change in
> the window properties e.g. by maximising the window and then restoring
to
> the original size.

I'm not following you. What you call "normal behaviour" isn't anything
I've ever seen. Maybe there's a terminology problem, so let me try to
describe what I think is normal (I'm using FM 7.2 in Win XP). 

FM has a multiple document interface (MDI). Within the application
parent window, you can open any number of documents (including books),
each in its own window. 

Using the buttons at the right end of each document window's title bar,
you can: 

-- Minimize the document window, reducing it to a small title bar at the
bottom of the application window. 

-- Maximize the document window, filling the application window
completely so that the document no longer has its own window frame,
title bar, scroll bars, etc. -- it gets these from the parent
application window. It still has its own Minimize, Restore, and Close
buttons right below the application window's. 

-- Restore the document window to the "normal" state (there may be a
more formal name for this, but I don't recall), making it the size it
was before being minimized or maximized. 

Whether a window is visible has nothing to do with whether it's
minimized, normal, or maximized. It can be either visible or hidden in
any of the three states.  

Open a book with several chapter files in it. Then hold the Shift key
and select File > Open All Files in Book. FM opens them all minimized,
their mini title bars neatly stacked at the bottom of the application
window. Press Ctrl-Tab repeatedly to cycle through all the open docs,
and you'll see that one after the other, the minimized windows get focus
(their title bars undim). But they remain minimized. 

Click Restore on one of the minimized windows and it returns to the
"normal" state and gets focus (becomes the "active" window). The others
remain minimized. Restore one or two more. Then move/resize the restored
windows if necessary so you can see at least portions of all of them and
still see some of the minimized ones. Cycle through them all with
Ctrl-Tab again, and you'll see that shifting focus from a normal window
to a minimized and back doesn't change their size/state, it only changes
which is "active" (and if the windows overlap, the active one is always
at the top of the "stack"). 

But Maximize works differently. Click a minimized window's Maximize
button. It fills the application window as described above. Now cycle
through the open windows with Ctrl-Tab. You'll see that _all_ of them
are now maximized. Maximizing any document or book window maximizes them
all (of course, you can only see the top one, which is "active").
Selecting them from the Window menu doesn't change this behavior.
They're all maximized, you're just changing which one is in front and
thus has focus. 

Now click the document's Restore button (below the application Restore
button in the FM title bar). All the windows resume their previous
state/size -- normal or minimized. If you Ctrl-Tab a time or two, you'll
see the focus move to the next window in the tab order, and it will be
normal or minimized.

But here's where it gets a little odd. From the Windows menu, select one
of the docs that briefly had focus in the previous step. It gets focus,
but retains its normal or minimized state. Now from the Windows menu,
select a document _other_ than the one(s) that had focus in the previous
step. It gets focus _and_ is _maximized_! 

So even though a doc appears to be in normal or minimized state (after
you restore a different maximized doc), some internal flag for window
state doesn't get flipped until you explicitly flip it with the Restore
button, click on or in it, or Ctrl-Tab to it. 

I don't think any of this behavior is new and only the sticky window
state switch strikes me as unusual. Are you seeing something that
doesn't match the above behaviors? 

Richard


Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
------
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-777-0436
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