Window Inside A Window

["... you mean these fans?"]

Hi,

 

I'm not sure where I should place this post, to if I made a mistake then I do apologize.

 

I develop on Mac and strangely enough all my customers have been Mac's which I've loved.  Now, however, I have this new customer on a PC and when he opens his file, he gets two filemaker  windows ...

 

It looks similar to the Mac; meaning the main application window opens but it's movable ... huh?? and is extremely confusing to my use where the mac it is not.  The main application window is stationary ...  Then, within this main application window on the PC, my solution opens into my solution window but the layout doesn't fit and it has an additional frame which, when having to consider two windows it is squeezing my available desktop space, my layouts and total confusion to my customer.

 

How can I open Filemaker where there is No Window Frame on the PC for the main Filemaker application ( Like the Mac ) allowing my solution to open fully and independently in the available desktop space?

 

This would be amazing If I could resolve this issue and any guidance in this matter I would be grateful.

 

Thank you PC guru's :-)

 

Tom

 

 

[HALBURN]

Welcome to the crappy world of using FileMaker on Windows.
 
Until last year I had developed FileMaker solutions solely for the Mac platform and FMGO. Last year I had a customer that required a cross platform solution. Much to my dismay I discover what a stinking pile of crap FileMaker is on Windows. The biggest problem is the one that you mentioned, dealing with the window within a window problem. If I was a full-time FileMaker on Windows developer I would have to shoot myself.
 
THE PROBLEM
If you have a solution running on Windows in full-screen mode and then tell FileMaker to open a second window, it kicks the primary window out of full-screen mode. This can totally screw up the user becuase when they get kicked out of full-screen mode it can crop off parts of your interface that are critical to your solution.
 
THE SOLUTION
The only solution that I have found (and I really hate it) is running a script when the solution opens that looks to see if the user is on Windows. If they are, the script measures their display and instead of going into full-screen mode it sizes the window to largest possible size without actually going into full-screen mode. What stinks about this solution is that you lose a lot of pixels that you could otherwise be using for you GUI because you must accommodate all of the additional borders and scroll bars when in this mode. The benefit is that it prevents the user's interface from getting all screwed up.
 
This demo file might help you:

DEMO_ResizeWindowsWindowToFullscreen_v1.0.zip

 

Good luck!

[Matthew F]

I think "windows inside a window" aspect of Filemaker on a PC is similar to the way application windows generally worked in Windows 3.1.   The PC world has come along way since then, and it would be nice if Filemaker would catch up. 

[HALBURN]

I think "windows inside a window" aspect of Filemaker on a PC is similar to the way application windows generally worked in Windows 3.1.   The PC world has come along way since then, and it would be nice if Filemaker would catch up. 

 

FileMaker needs to clean house and get their act together. It's quite ridiculous how a few lazy and/or incompetent programmers at their company results in thousands of FileMaker developers wasting their time trying to create workarounds to their problems. The same problems that linger on year after year.

[David Jondreau]

One of the things you've got to do to manage differences in how OS X and Windows handle window management, is be aware of how you use Adjust Window[] and Resize Window[]. On the Mac, Resize to Fit or custom sizing is fine. On Windows, generally, you only want Maximize. You can make a small script that does the check and Adjusts[] appropriately and drop that in place of any Adjusts[] you already have in other scripts.

["... you mean these fans?"]

Halburn,

 

Thank you for your file.  

 

I've ran it on the spare PC and the small window that pops up looks great :-) Just what I needed.  I will integrate it into my start up script and I saw your notes :-) :-) 

 

Anything that helps me and keeps my customers from total confusion, asking a billion question; I am grateful !!

 

 

Tom :-)

["... you mean these fans?"]

David,

 

Can you clarify "Adjust[ ]" in this example a bit more, I would be grateful.

 

"On Windows, generally, you only want Maximize. You can make a small script that does the check and Adjusts[] appropriately and drop that in place of any Adjusts[] you already have in other scripts."

 

Thank you.

 

Tom :-)

[HALBURN]

I will integrate it into my start up script and I saw your notes :-) :-) 

 

Great, I am glad that it helped you. I wrote it for a co-worker. Woops, I forgot to edit the notes for public consumption. The sarcasm was intended for him.