Workbook mode not working at high screen resolutions

I just tried a cursory test using Windows XP and uVision2 V2.40. Everything seems OK. I'm using a Matrox 3-head video adapter with a video resolution of 3840x1024 (yes, 3840).

Windows 95 and Windows 98 were plagued with unstable video drivers that appeared to work for most applications but not for others.

What do you do to make the tabs get messed up? If you can give me a list of stuff to try (preferably with one of the exammmple projects) I can see what happens on my machine.

Jon

I just tried a cursory test using Windows XP and uVision2 V2.40. Everything seems OK. I'm using a Matrox 3-head video adapter with a video resolution of 3840x1024 (yes, 3840).

Windows 95 and Windows 98 were plagued with unstable video drivers that appeared to work for most applications but not for others.

What do you do to make the tabs get messed up? If you can give me a list of stuff to try (preferably with one of the exammmple projects) I can see what happens on my machine.

Jon

All you have to do is enable Workbook mode in the view options, then maximize the UVision window. (I also have the status bar enabled.) The workbook buttons will be gone, the screen will not be refreshed properly and all other kinds of weird things happen.

If you then manually resize your window so it's smaller, the buttons will come back at a certain point. It is worse if you have the Output window enabled and docked to the bottom of the screen (full width).

If you grab the resize corner and drag the window to full screen, you will start to see the status bar and workbook buttons get distorted as you approach full screen. It's like the window size parameters do not take into account the extra space the workbook buttons occupy when enabled.

I have confirmed that this also occurs with WinXP.

Thank,
Brian

All of this works perfectly for me!

It even works if I stretch uVision over 2 monitors at different resolutions!
(though that naturally looks a bit funny!!)

Earlier I stated V2.39 has the problem. I meant V2.40. Sorry, I got the 2.39 from reading the release notes which state 2.39 is the latest.

Nevertheless, something changed from V2.36 to V2.40 which has affected the workbook mode on all systems we have here. It would be nice if changes were documented between versions, especially bugs. Why was V2.36 upgraded? What were the changes? And which one of those changes created this problem? As I stated earlier, my video drivers and all other hardware worked fine with V2.36, the only change in this whole equation is the UVision software.

There is nothing special I have to do in order to duplicate this problem....only maximize the window with the workbook buttons on. That's it. My screen setup is as follows:
- Status Bar ON
- File toolbar ON
- Build toolbar ON
- Output window open and stretched full width across bottom of screen, about 2 inches high
- Project window open to left of screen about 2 inches wide, on top of output window
- The rest of screen for viewing files

Even with no files open, selecting Workbook mode will change the border around the files window as it resizes it to include the tabs on the bottom, but it doesn't refresh properly. Sometimes sections of the desktop can be seen through the Uvision window.

I appreciate you guys trying to help...someone else has to have this problem.

Brian

OK. I just tried everything you suggested on another 1280x1024 and everything works well.

1. What video card and video driver are you using?
2. What version of Windows 98? Are you using 98SE?
3. Are you using a US Govt version of Windows 98?

Here are a few other questions:

1. What motherboard and BIOS do you have?
2. Do all the computers you tested on have the same motherboard? Video card?
3. Have you looked for an upgraded video driver?

• The default setting is Full, which turns on all graphics hardware acceleration features available in the driver.
• The first notch from the right fixes many mouse problems.
• The second notch from the right prevents some bit block transfers and disables memory-mapped I/O for some display drivers.
• The last notch from the right (None) can be set to correct problems if your computer frequently stops responding to input or has other severe problems.

OK, I got it working on one computer!

I did as you suggested, Jon, and lowered the graphics acceleration one notch. Sorry I didn't try this simple step earlier, but I didn't since it worked with V2.36 at full acceleration. Why it works with 2.36 and not 2.40 is still a mystery....but is inconsequential at this point.

I will try this on all our systems and am pretty sure it will solve this issue. I'll search for upgraded drivers and see if I can then increase the graphics acceleration back up to full.

Thank you!

Much appreciated,
Brian

OK. Did that get things working on all of your PCs? If so, what video card were you using so the rest of us can avoid it.

Jon

I got all the computers working now.

The funny thing is I never installed the new version on my computer because of the problem, but when I did upgrade my version yesterday...I found that I didn't even have that problem on my computer! I guess it's cause I always search for updated drivers on a regular basis.

But 2 computers here only work if the graphics acceleration is set down one notch (or if screen resolution is set to 1024x768 or less).

Computer 1:
- ATI XPERT@PLAY AGP 2X video card
- Driver 4.11.2628
(Trying to update this driver only caused computer to lock up when booting)

Computer 2:
- 3D Force B23 Plus NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Model 64
- Still need to upgrade to newest driver released 12/9/2003

I haven't been able to play with Computer 2 yet...people get mad when you try to mess with their computer while they're using it, LOL.

"(Trying to update this driver only caused computer to lock up when booting)"

And people were throwing mud at Keil... ;-)

It's a bit unlikely that two completely different drivers for two completely different cards happen to show exactly the same bug in exactly the same set of circumsdances. Sounds more like something not quite right with uvision to me.

Stefan

No, the mud was thrown when Keil added something to V2.40 which created this "problem"... which was not evident in V2.36. ;-)

I have nothing against Keil and am very happy with their products and continuous improvements.

People make mistakes, I just want to find to a way to fix them...and I have thanks to Jon.

Regards,
Brian

"And people were throwing mud at Keil... ;-)"

Ah, but Keil software is *expensive* unlike video drivers supplied with far-eastern video cards. I guess people expect more.

Stefan

No, the mud was thrown when Keil added something to V2.40 which created this "problem"... which was not evident in V2.36. ;-)

Well, I'm not sure just WHAT we could have done to uVision to create the problem. We use Microsoft Visual C++ and the only things I can find that we changed there with regard to windows or dialogs is that we added more descriptive text on the left side of windows that dock. This was done using an MFC routine -- uVision doesn't manipulate the display directly, it uses MFC library calls to do stuff like that.

So, I contacted a buddy of mine who is one of the software developers at Microsoft and described the problem. His first question was ... does this involve an ATI video card...

Here were his comments.

• If changing the hardware acceleration level fixes the problem, then the problems is not in MFC.
• The Microsoft video driver for ATI video cards is well tested and stable. In fact, it's probably more stable than the ATI driver. You may want to use the Microsoft driver (if there is one for 98se).
• Run the card at 60Hz and see if this solves the problem.