Really, really, REALLY stupid Windows question

General Questions
#1

… stupid because, you see, I program for a living.

Anyway, you know how you’re working with some Windows program (in this case it’s WebGain’s Visual Cafe), and you are trying to respond to some dialog box. But the dialog box is too tall for your screen. The “OK”/“Cancel”/“Help”
buttons are actually below the end of your screen. And there doesn’t seem to be any way to move the box up, or make it smaller, or scroll it, or anything. What’s a body to do in a case like that?

Actually I did just hit on one solution, but I find it fairly awkard: Just move the menu bar to the side…but I like having it on the bottom, so there!

So if anyone can suggest a better way, please let me know.

#2

Alt-Spacebar (=clicking on the icon in the top left corner of your window) and then M (= Move). Then use your arrow keys to move the window around, and ENTER when done.

from a fellow (VB) programmer, who reminds you that the only stupid question is the one you DON’T ask!

#3

Thanks javaman for asking the question and Keeve for the answer.

I’ve had this happen two or three times. I do this and do that and finally I do something that gets me out of the fix I’m in, but I don’t know exactly what. Now if I can just remember the Alt/spacebar then “move” I’m set.

#4

Run your desktop at a higher resolution, and the dialog won’t be too tall for the screen any more.

Now that Windows XP has mandated 800x600 as the minimum acceptable desktop resolution, we’ll be seeing more giant dialogs.

#5

Pressing “Esc” should cancel the dialog, as if you had pressed the “Cancel” button. “Enter” would press the default button, which is probably “OK”. Alt-O should also work for OK, Alt-C for cancel, and Alt-H for Help. That’s if the program is doing things the usual standard way. but any program badly-behaved enough to have a dialog box that is too tall for the screen is probably also badly-behaved enought to not support the expected keypress behaviour, so <shrug>

#6

All the other suggestions are better than this one. This is sort of a desperation act.

If you’re feeling lucky (or are a good guesser, or know the program well), you can just press tab until you think the correct button is focused and then press enter.

#7

Of course, the viewable area of your monitor is slightly smaller than the actual screen because the facia panel covers the edges. So what I do is rip the facia panel off.

#8

You’re not serious, right?

There are screen-size controls on most monitors.

#9

Unless you have LCD screens with fixed resolution. One time I had a problem with one program that uses floating tool trays (like Adobe Photoshop does) - used it for a while with a big CRT, then switched to a smaller LCD screen and the controls were off the screen. Anyone know what I could have done to fix that? (What I did was to look in the manual and find keyboard shortcuts for those commands.) The program in question was National Instruments LabView, in case you’re curious.

#10

Yeah, no I am serious. See, ripping the facia off also exposes various wires at mains voltage. The thrill of 240 volts (here in Australia) down the fingertips if I accidentally touch them adds a little frisson of danger to my otherwise dull working days.

[Whoooosh!]

#11

I always use the auto hide feature. My taskbar is handy when I need it, and it doesn’t take up valuable screen space.

#12

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by scr4 *
**

This will happen any time you switch monitors on a computer, whether it is LCD or not. Anything that was a full screen before will now readjust itself to be full screen on the new monitor. But if it had a specific size and position, it will go to that size and position, and not care about where the edge of the monitor is.

Solution #1 is to use the keyboard shortcuts until everything is in a new position. Solution #2 is to resize everything manually while you still have the old monitor.

#13

Please answer this Q. in layman’s terms - When I turned my compter off last night, everything was A-ok. When I turned my computer on this morning, the screen display was tilted slightly to the right and had an inch of black space at the top and bottom of the screen display, hence everything looked elongated or squashed. I didn’t change or touch anything (wouldn’t know how if I wanted to :o ) How do I get my computer’s screen display back to normal? I tried all kinds of things in the “Display Properties” window, but nothing helped. I have Windows 98 and a 15" generic monitor. Thank you!

#14

Most monitors have controls. What monitor are you using?

#15

Also, you can click on the taskbar & select properties & select ‘auto hide’ This hides it, of course, so you can
see whats behind it.

#16

Most programs save the locations of windows, toolbars, etc. in the registry so you can change them with regedit. They may or may not be in an easily understood format though so be sure to back up the registry first in case you make things worse.

BTW, I do instrument control too, although I mostly write programs in C or Visual Basic rather than use things like LabView.

#17

That’s not always caused by monitor settings. Often, programs open windows that are just plain offscreen, no matter how you have your taskbar or monitor size set. You can get a small program called Shove-It. It sits in your system tray and pushes windows that open offscreen back so that they are entirely on screen. It also resizes windows and dialog boxes that are too big to fit onscreen.

Find it on Tucows.

#18

effiesmom, on the monitor itself should be the controls to center the screen & stuff. Wait a half hour before
changing them, this gives it time to warm up.

#19

Thanks to those of you who replied so quickly! :smiley: Monitor switches did nadda… initially, turning the tower off and on again did nadda… then, the next time I turned it off and on again, POOF and BINGO! - like the glitch never existed… so I guess the “wait a half hour” advice was enough :cool: Maybe next time I should treat my computer like a 1968 TV and just conk it on it’s head! Thanks again!