Keyboard commands "lost" when TC busy

[Hacker]

Hi all,
I am not really sure about this but it seems in some recent TC 9 betas TC cannot "keep up" with my typing anymore.

Examples:
- I press F7, type "test", press Enter quickly twice so I immediately enter into the new dir. The second Enter gets "lost" and my cursor is on the dir so I have to press Enter again.
- I Ctrl-Tab to a tab with lots of files, TC reads the dir for half a second, meanwhile I press Alt-Q (my shortcut to invoke quicksearch) and type "test" to go to a file, but some of the keystrokes get lost and I end up with no quicksearch but "est" in the command line instead.

These worked before but do not anymore, it seems that as long as TC is busy the keys I type get lost instead of being processed later.

Perhaps this is related?

07.09.16 Release Total Commander 9.0 beta 13 (32/64)
04.09.16 Added: Still react to Windows messages while reading long directory, just ignore mouse and keyboard messages (32/64)

If yes, please allow to turn this behavior off (super secret INI switch?), the previous behavior was much more usable to me.

Thank you
Roman

[pulbitz]

same here.

[ghisler(Author)]

Yes, that's what is causing the problem. But I have to do this, otherwise Windows takes away the focus from TC and shows a grayed window!

But there is still a way to improve it: I don't react to the keyboard input for one second. Then Windows doesn't complain, and the keyboard input isn't lost. The only downside is that the Enter key is lost when reading the directory takes more than 1 second.

[Hacker]

Christian,
Thank you, let's try that. What is the maximum time that TC could not-react to keyboard input and Windows still would not complain?

Roman

[Hacker]

Christian,
Also, not sure if this is related but I often don't seem to be able to start programs by clicking on the button bar if TC is inactive anymore:

1. Have TC open, a dir with many files is active
2. Switch to another program (eg. Notepad) which does not cover TC's button bar
3. Click on any icon in the TC button bar (eg. Word)

Expected: TC is activated, current dir is reread and Word is launched.
Instead: TC is activated and current dir gets reread while mouse click to launch Word is ignored.

This is not 100 % reproducable, might depend on file amount in current dir, caching, or something else.

TIA
Roman

[ghisler(Author)]

Thank you, let's try that. Smile What is the maximum time that TC could not-react to keyboard input and Windows still would not complain?

It depends, normally about 2-2.5 seconds. So 1 second should be on the safe side.

[Hacker]

Christian,
Thank you, it is much better now, however, I think 2 seconds would improve the result for the few cases where there is a large amount of files in a dir, if you'd be willing to change it.

TIA
Roman

[ghisler(Author)]

It's risky, any small additional delay and Windows will again steal the focus away...

[Hacker]

Christian,
Honestly, I don't know what this change

04.09.16 Added: Still react to Windows messages while reading long directory, just ignore mouse and keyboard messages (32/64)

was supposed to fix so it's hard for me to consider what impact any further adjustments to it might have. I only know I was completely fine with the previous behavior.
Anyway, I leave it up to you, one second is okay-ish, even though I'd vote for a bit more.

Roman

[ghisler(Author)]

Well, people complained that the focus was lost, e.g. on slow network drives - and when the user then clicked on TC again, TC refreshed the directory, resulting in the same problem again.

[redfox]

I think that mouse and keyb commands should have the priority, as it was before.

[j7n]

Which Windows version does the focus stealing?

[Hacker]

j7n,
I am on W7 x64.

Roman

[Hacker]

Christian,

05.10.16 Fixed: When entering large directories, wait with handling messages for up to 1.9 seconds - still safe to avoid freezing, but keeps keyboard input made by user (32/64)

Thank you!

Roman