Discussion:
Excluding in WFX does not work
(too old to reply)
Bright
2006-03-03 09:51:55 UTC
Permalink
Just like excluding in WB does not work (still, after so many years!)
it does not work for WFX.
I excluded Delphi, but still I see eg. shadows, animations etc.

Delphi (and some other programs) is also excluded in WB and, as you
can see in the screenshot, the window is still (re)painted by WB too.
I complaint about this many times, but, Stardock, please, EXCLUDE the
programs that should be excluded!

I posted a picture in the binaries group
Neil Banfield
2006-03-03 11:38:08 UTC
Permalink
Post by Bright
Just like excluding in WB does not work (still, after so many years!)
it does not work for WFX.
I excluded Delphi, but still I see eg. shadows, animations etc.
Delphi (and some other programs) is also excluded in WB and, as you
can see in the screenshot, the window is still (re)painted by WB too.
I complaint about this many times, but, Stardock, please, EXCLUDE the
programs that should be excluded!
I posted a picture in the binaries group
If you are having problems with WB also not excluding it then it sounds
most likely that you have excluded the wrong exe. The WB exclusion
system has not changed in years and it works perfectly.

If an app stops responding for 5 seconds or so then the XP 'ghost'
window that appears (so you can move & close the app) will be skinned by
WB, but thats because the ghost window is part of explorer, not the app
thats excluded.

Your picture seems to be corrupt in the binaries group. Could you repost?


Neil
Bright
2006-03-07 08:27:11 UTC
Permalink
Thanks for your respond. But, you are partially wrong.
For years excluding an app means it will be rendered by WB and, after
that again by Windows itself. Or, to put it somewhat better:
an excluded app is first drawn by Windows. After that WB redraws its
screen, WFX draws shadow etc. and only after that WB and WFX remove
what they did, forcing Windows to redraw their window again.
This is what I see in the past few YEARS. I NEVER saw anything else
and did complain about this more than once.

However, I did notice that once excluding Delphi would indeed not keep
Delphi in WB mode. So, after rechecking, it seems WB has REMOVED all
of my exclusions on some install. Why does a WB update do this? This
way every update forces me to exclude all applications again and
again!

So there are two problems here:
- Excluding means still drawing an app and thereafter let Windows
redraw the window again
- Installing an update of WB (and WFX?) means the exclusion list is
emptied again!

btw: here the binairy seems to be ok.

btw2: is there any possibility to let explorer NOT create the ghost
image of an app that seems to have died?
Post by Neil Banfield
Post by Bright
Just like excluding in WB does not work (still, after so many years!)
it does not work for WFX.
I excluded Delphi, but still I see eg. shadows, animations etc.
Delphi (and some other programs) is also excluded in WB and, as you
can see in the screenshot, the window is still (re)painted by WB too.
I complaint about this many times, but, Stardock, please, EXCLUDE the
programs that should be excluded!
I posted a picture in the binaries group
If you are having problems with WB also not excluding it then it sounds
most likely that you have excluded the wrong exe. The WB exclusion
system has not changed in years and it works perfectly.
If an app stops responding for 5 seconds or so then the XP 'ghost'
window that appears (so you can move & close the app) will be skinned by
WB, but thats because the ghost window is part of explorer, not the app
thats excluded.
Your picture seems to be corrupt in the binaries group. Could you repost?
Neil
Daiwa
2006-03-09 00:20:31 UTC
Permalink
Two things:

Neil is WB's developer (maybe you know this?) - I would trust what he's
telling you about WB as being "highly" accurate.

WB had an .ini- or textfile-based per-app exclusion system in versions 3.x &
below and maybe in the first iteration or two of 4.x. It now detects
"problem" apps on the fly, rather than by way of an .ini file, and so few of
them are indeed problematic that I never noticed that the per-app exclusions
were gone. You can also set WB to only skin theme-aware apps in WBConfig.
Apps that I had routinely excluded manually from WB now work fine even
though there are no per-app exclusions (except SkinStudio, which is odd
since it gets skinned anyway). Because there are billions of permutations &
combinations of apps & OS's out there, the ability to manually exclude
should still be there, but it's rarely needed anymore.
Post by Bright
Thanks for your respond. But, you are partially wrong.
For years excluding an app means it will be rendered by WB and, after
an excluded app is first drawn by Windows. After that WB redraws its
screen, WFX draws shadow etc. and only after that WB and WFX remove
what they did, forcing Windows to redraw their window again.
This is what I see in the past few YEARS. I NEVER saw anything else
and did complain about this more than once.
However, I did notice that once excluding Delphi would indeed not keep
Delphi in WB mode. So, after rechecking, it seems WB has REMOVED all
of my exclusions on some install. Why does a WB update do this? This
way every update forces me to exclude all applications again and
again!
- Excluding means still drawing an app and thereafter let Windows
redraw the window again
- Installing an update of WB (and WFX?) means the exclusion list is
emptied again!
btw: here the binairy seems to be ok.
btw2: is there any possibility to let explorer NOT create the ghost
image of an app that seems to have died?
Post by Neil Banfield
Post by Bright
Just like excluding in WB does not work (still, after so many years!)
it does not work for WFX.
I excluded Delphi, but still I see eg. shadows, animations etc.
Delphi (and some other programs) is also excluded in WB and, as you
can see in the screenshot, the window is still (re)painted by WB too.
I complaint about this many times, but, Stardock, please, EXCLUDE the
programs that should be excluded!
I posted a picture in the binaries group
If you are having problems with WB also not excluding it then it sounds
most likely that you have excluded the wrong exe. The WB exclusion
system has not changed in years and it works perfectly.
If an app stops responding for 5 seconds or so then the XP 'ghost'
window that appears (so you can move & close the app) will be skinned by
WB, but thats because the ghost window is part of explorer, not the app
thats excluded.
Your picture seems to be corrupt in the binaries group. Could you repost?
Neil
Bright
2006-03-10 08:03:46 UTC
Permalink
I know who Neil is. But he's just clearly wrong in saying that apps in
the exclusion list are not drawn by WB or WFX.
I can proof that windows of those apps are being drawn when they start
and then are 'written over' by Windows again.
This behaviour has been going on since I have WB (and that's a long
time now!) and still has not changed. However, it is not always as
noticeable. It's just problematic when using - well - problematic
software.

You are right in saying that the number of odd programs not working
with WB has lowered. But, I have a NVIDIA FX5200 with some strange
glitch (in the driver) which causes random lockups because of using
WFX and WB and CursorXP and some programs like these.
Occasionally when having such a glitch I do see a program being drawn
by WB or WFX which should not be drawn.
This is especially true with WFX (which still tries to use the
animations to open any program)

For the time being I removed WFX since it's too buggy for me. I also
had to revert to an older version of the driver (version 77.x) This
seems to cause the glitches, because it's gone now.
Maybe I will try WFX later on again.
(I very much like the program though!)

On Wed, 8 Mar 2006 17:20:31 -0700, "Daiwa"
Post by Daiwa
Neil is WB's developer (maybe you know this?) - I would trust what he's
telling you about WB as being "highly" accurate.
WB had an .ini- or textfile-based per-app exclusion system in versions 3.x &
below and maybe in the first iteration or two of 4.x. It now detects
"problem" apps on the fly, rather than by way of an .ini file, and so few of
them are indeed problematic that I never noticed that the per-app exclusions
were gone. You can also set WB to only skin theme-aware apps in WBConfig.
Apps that I had routinely excluded manually from WB now work fine even
though there are no per-app exclusions (except SkinStudio, which is odd
since it gets skinned anyway). Because there are billions of permutations &
combinations of apps & OS's out there, the ability to manually exclude
should still be there, but it's rarely needed anymore.
Post by Bright
Thanks for your respond. But, you are partially wrong.
For years excluding an app means it will be rendered by WB and, after
an excluded app is first drawn by Windows. After that WB redraws its
screen, WFX draws shadow etc. and only after that WB and WFX remove
what they did, forcing Windows to redraw their window again.
This is what I see in the past few YEARS. I NEVER saw anything else
and did complain about this more than once.
However, I did notice that once excluding Delphi would indeed not keep
Delphi in WB mode. So, after rechecking, it seems WB has REMOVED all
of my exclusions on some install. Why does a WB update do this? This
way every update forces me to exclude all applications again and
again!
- Excluding means still drawing an app and thereafter let Windows
redraw the window again
- Installing an update of WB (and WFX?) means the exclusion list is
emptied again!
btw: here the binairy seems to be ok.
btw2: is there any possibility to let explorer NOT create the ghost
image of an app that seems to have died?
Post by Neil Banfield
Post by Bright
Just like excluding in WB does not work (still, after so many years!)
it does not work for WFX.
I excluded Delphi, but still I see eg. shadows, animations etc.
Delphi (and some other programs) is also excluded in WB and, as you
can see in the screenshot, the window is still (re)painted by WB too.
I complaint about this many times, but, Stardock, please, EXCLUDE the
programs that should be excluded!
I posted a picture in the binaries group
If you are having problems with WB also not excluding it then it sounds
most likely that you have excluded the wrong exe. The WB exclusion
system has not changed in years and it works perfectly.
If an app stops responding for 5 seconds or so then the XP 'ghost'
window that appears (so you can move & close the app) will be skinned by
WB, but thats because the ghost window is part of explorer, not the app
thats excluded.
Your picture seems to be corrupt in the binaries group. Could you repost?
Neil
Neil Banfield
2006-03-10 10:03:07 UTC
Permalink
Post by Bright
I know who Neil is. But he's just clearly wrong in saying that apps in
the exclusion list are not drawn by WB or WFX.
I can proof that windows of those apps are being drawn when they start
and then are 'written over' by Windows again.
This is not true.

WindowBlinds checks exclusions well before any painting can happen &
once excluded an app will not be skinned.

The only exception is when an app hangs in which case the ghost window
will skin, but thats an explorer window and not an app window (its
basically a screenshot of the window contents) which is why it is
skinned. The same thing would happen if you used the default XP look.
Post by Bright
This behaviour has been going on since I have WB (and that's a long
time now!) and still has not changed. However, it is not always as
noticeable. It's just problematic when using - well - problematic
software.
You are right in saying that the number of odd programs not working
with WB has lowered. But, I have a NVIDIA FX5200 with some strange
glitch (in the driver) which causes random lockups because of using
WFX and WB and CursorXP and some programs like these.
Occasionally when having such a glitch I do see a program being drawn
by WB or WFX which should not be drawn.
This is especially true with WFX (which still tries to use the
animations to open any program)
It sounds to me like your apps are hanging briefly and what you see is
the ghost window. Please trust me when I say WindowBlinds will not skin
an app excluded using the exclusion list. Its just not something that
can happen.


Neil
Daiwa
2006-03-11 01:31:12 UTC
Permalink
So if Explorer were excluded, the ghost window would not get skinned?
Alain
2006-03-11 13:52:34 UTC
Permalink
Post by Daiwa
So if Explorer were excluded, the ghost window would not get skinned?
And you will get unskined explorer windows, unskined search, unskined internet explorer, prossibly
unskined outlook express.
--
Alain
-------------------------------
Drive A: not responding.. .Formating C: instead
===============================
Daiwa
2006-03-12 03:39:27 UTC
Permalink
That wasn't my point - just a way for Bright to test it.
Neil Banfield
2006-03-13 15:47:09 UTC
Permalink
Post by Daiwa
So if Explorer were excluded, the ghost window would not get skinned?
Yes, but I believe WB5 will not permit explorer to be excluded.

Adding the following to wb.ini (in the windows directory)

[Global]
NoGhostSupport = 1

will make WB force window ghosting off.


Neil
Bright
2006-03-14 07:09:40 UTC
Permalink
Trying ...
(Is a restart needed after this?)
Post by Neil Banfield
Post by Daiwa
So if Explorer were excluded, the ghost window would not get skinned?
Yes, but I believe WB5 will not permit explorer to be excluded.
Adding the following to wb.ini (in the windows directory)
[Global]
NoGhostSupport = 1
will make WB force window ghosting off.
Neil
Neil Banfield
2006-03-14 16:37:00 UTC
Permalink
Post by Bright
Trying ...
(Is a restart needed after this?)
A restart of the apps in question is needed.


Neil

Bright
2006-03-14 07:07:23 UTC
Permalink
Tried this after Neils ghost window explanation, but this won't work.
I still see the WB paintings.

However, it might be true in Windows showing the ghost windows while
the apps start up.
eg Delphi will take a significant time to startup. In the mean time it
won't respond to anything anyone does. So, a ghost is created.

-------
Neil (and other Stardockers), just an idea:
I am wondering: Could WB see a ghost windows is drawn specific for a
certain program? If so, when the program is an excluded program, WB
should not paint the ghost window.
Post by Daiwa
So if Explorer were excluded, the ghost window would not get skinned?
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