Stay on top

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Stay on top 18/02/2010 at 23:36 #734
postal
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In the scrolly sims, I set the Control Panel, Overview and Message Window to stay on top. If I go to another of the programs running on my system, the screen for that program shows in front of the Control Panel and the Main View. However, the Message Window and Overview stay on top.

This is rather annoying if you want to have a quick dip into another program like your browser or e-mail. Can the stay on top option be set to operate the same for all of the SimSig screens and allow other programs to display in front of them while allowing the subsidiary screens to stay on top when SimSig is the active program?

JG

“In life, there is always someone out there, who won’t like you, for whatever reason, don’t let the insecurities in their lives affect yours.” – Rashida Rowe
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Stay on top 18/02/2010 at 23:36 #6812
postal
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5189 posts
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In the scrolly sims, I set the Control Panel, Overview and Message Window to stay on top. If I go to another of the programs running on my system, the screen for that program shows in front of the Control Panel and the Main View. However, the Message Window and Overview stay on top.

This is rather annoying if you want to have a quick dip into another program like your browser or e-mail. Can the stay on top option be set to operate the same for all of the SimSig screens and allow other programs to display in front of them while allowing the subsidiary screens to stay on top when SimSig is the active program?

JG

“In life, there is always someone out there, who won’t like you, for whatever reason, don’t let the insecurities in their lives affect yours.” – Rashida Rowe
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Stay on top 19/02/2010 at 05:19 #6813
UKTrainMan
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Having done a little test with KingsX I have to come to the conclusion that for some reason the 'Control Panel' window appears to be the only one not doing what is asked of it.

Now, enough of stating the obvious and allow me to pass on a little tip.

What I normally* do on the scrolly sims is move the Control Panel to right up to the top so that the title bar (with the X on it) is actually off the top of my screen (basically, only just showing a tiny bit) and I do the same with the Messages window too - the latter of which I would select "Stay on-top". Then, if I'm using the Overview window (I don't use it on every sim) I would place it below the aforementioned windows. Then of course I would have the View window at the bottom but again I would position it at the far edge of my screen so that only a faint line of the edge shows then I would use the little box in the bottom right-hand corner of the window to expand it as far as possible.

With everything arranged like this I can get on with the game and not have to worry. The Messages window is the one I consider the most important so I would leave that displaying at all times, especially if I were perhaps doing something on the Internet quickly, mid-game. If needed, I can quickly & simply disabled the "Stay-on-top" option for the Messages window and it would remain in-place ready for me to turn "Stay on-top" back on again.

However things may change on Southampton as I might end up putting the Overview window in the top-right hand corner and then the Messages window below that.

In either case, I tend to make sure the windows overlap each other in some way so that I maximize the available space. An example of this would be to have the View window touching or even overlapping the control window and then the Messages window overlapping both the title bar of the View and also a bit of the Control Panel (up to the right edge of the X)

In recent times, I would normally join a multiplayer game and spend that first few minutes just arranging the windows however I have since found out that I can do this first in singleplayer then join a multiplayer game as the window arrangement thankfully remain the same.

I have never had any problems with this arrangement so far and so I would be more than happy to recommend this to others. In-fact, if anyone would like a screenshot taken of this arrangement then please do not hesitate to ask me.

Hope that this helps, somewhat.


[sub]* = depends on the sim[/sub]

Any views and / or opinions expressed by myself are from me personally and do not represent those of any company I either work for or am a consultant for.
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Stay on top 20/02/2010 at 00:39 #6832
Helper
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Unfortunately, this is a quirk of Windows. As all the windows in the program are part of the same program, if you ask all of them to stay on top then this creates a conflict between the windows as only one can truly stay on top and the others must yield to it.

Depending on the programming language used, the programmers may be able to specify modal or non-modal, the latter will allow all windows to stay on top of other programs but not each other. Modal will keep one window on top of all other windows no matter what (except for certain system created windows).

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