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[6233638]

1. Changed: Theater View, Display View, and Cover View are now always-on-top windows so that system dialogs are less likely to appear and/or steal the focus in these modes.

Please make this optional.

There has been an intermittent issue where video playback would be set to always-on-top (actually, I should have reported that in the "wash the car" topic) and I would have to double-click it to exit full-screen mode, switch over to the tab for my Video zone (because the mini player disappears when it's in a tab) and double-click it again to make it go back to full-screen without being on top of everything else.

With this change, I can't leave a video playing full-screen in the background at all any more, when I alt-tab, I can only see the taskbar floating above the window.

I do this so that:
1. Video playback works in the taskbar when hovering over the Media Center icon.
2. I can temporarily put up a video full-screen by hovering over the taskbar preview.

An example of when I do this is if I have an hour-long presentation that I want to listen to, but don't necessarily need to watch - however sometimes there are slides that I need to see, so hovering over the window for 10-20 seconds works for that, and then I can get back to whatever else I was doing on the computer while continuing to listen to the presentation.

I thought this is what Full-screen Exclusive Mode was supposed to be for?

2. Fixed: FLAC reference code would crash when encoding when an estimated total size was provided to the encoder, the 'verify' option was enabled, and encoding duration exceeded the estimated duration.

I actually reported that DSD to FLAC conversion was now working for me recently, but actually when testing it again in 192 today, SACD ISOs were still crashing, and it was only DFF/DSF files that worked.

This has stopped SACD ISO to FLAC conversion from crashing. (sorry that I was unable to get a useful crash report for you)

[Matt]

Please make this optional.

Sure.

However, I'd like to wait a couple weeks to see what comes of this revised model.  This build makes some changes to how we bring windows to the foreground and manage the always-on-top state.  The changes were made for a variety of reasons, and I want to make sure they're squared away before adding complexity.

[6233638]

OK - but I suspect this might be one of those changes that seems minimal, which is going to get negative feedback once it's publicly available.

[6233638]

Did some more testing:

I can't bring up the DSP Studio when playing back video now either, it's showing behind the video.
Playback Options show over the video as expected.

[JimH]

There's a good reason that we're doing this, so please find a work around for now.

[jmone]

Ooooo this will be very good for the HTPC as occasionally something grabs focus and while it "Looks" to be on top you have to pull out the keyboard to make it so.  It causes all sorts of confusion for the Family when this happens.

I'm also with 6233638 that it would be good for it to be optional a on my Main PC where I do the admin, testing, tagging I bring stuff up over the playing now window all the time and this no longer works.  The "workaround" for now it to make MC a Window instead of being Full Screen.

Thanks
Nathan

[jmone]

Did some more testing:

I can't bring up the DSP Studio when playing back video now either, it's showing behind the video.
Playback Options show over the video as expected.

I can confirm the above.

[leezer3]

Good reasons are subjective  
You've already got your first 'regular' user complaint in the .193 build thread, and I'm going to add mine here

I run a dual monitor setup. I normally have a detached window covering approx 50% of display #2, with either video, covers or image playback running, along with the main interface in the background so that I can drop back into MC if I spot something that needs tweaking or I want to change the playlist.
I also use display #2 as what I'd term a 'dumping ground' for anything I need to see at the same time as what I'm working on (Diagrams, background browser windows etc), and this change is basically blocking anything else from that display.

It's a relatively reasonable change for an exclusively used display such as Theater View, but not for a detached window on a second display. Even then, you are going to get people who complain about not being able to ALT+TAB, as pretty much all apps even fullscreen games tend to support it

-Leezer-

[bv1pacb]

...you are going to get people who complain about not being able to ALT+TAB...

Yah,  +1

[marko]

This is a very serious thread, and I appreciate that. Even so, allow me to lower the tone and lighten the mood by suggesting the title be changed as it's loaded with sexual innuendo and makes me chuckle when I see it in the list of topics.

Schoolboy humour never gets old

So far, on both desktop and htpc, this change has had no detrimental effect on our MC experience.

-marko

[JimH]

You have a dirty mind.   

[Matt]

You have a dirty mind.   

But you're the one that keeps picking dirty topic titles

(stolen from this joke)

[fitbrit]

Even then, you are going to get people who complain about not being able to ALT+TAB, as pretty much all apps even fullscreen games tend to support it

+2. Sometimes I MUST alt-tab away from playing video in order to fix a memory problem. Not being able to last night resulted in a 5 minute fiasco in he middle of a tv show and a displeased wife.

[6233638]

Notifications are still showing up over video playback: