Issue launching DirextX app from PPT

[Guest]

I have a PowerPoint that launches a DirectX full screen application via link.
Problem I’m having is that on some occasions, the application would launch
but then loses its focus and PPT regains the focus and becomes an active
window. Has anybody have seen this problem before or have any idea why PPT
is re-activating itself?

 

[Bill Dilworth]

Two possibilities that I can think of...

One -- PowerPoint has something pending or needs to queue something up.
This would then re-focus the presentation. If for instance there is an
animation that is to follow, or a slide advance that is automatically timed.

Two -- the user is double clicking the link. This is the way a lot of items
are activated on computers and some users instinctively double click on the
links. However, in PowerPoint, a hyperlink only requires a single click.
If the user double clicks, the first activates the hyperlink and the second
re-activates the PowerPoint show focus.

Personally, I think it is probably the meatware issue.


--
Bill Dilworth
A proud member of the Microsoft PPT MVP Team
Users helping fellow users.
http://billdilworth.mvps.org
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yahoo2@ Please read the PowerPoint
yahoo. FAQ pages. They answer most
com of our questions.
www.pptfaq.com
..
..

 

[Guest]

It's definitely not the user double clicking the link problem because I saw
it happening with one single click.

From my observation, it seems to be more of timing thing so it is possible
that PowerPoint has something pending and needs to do something. The slide
itself has no animations, timing events or etc; it's one plain static slide
with a box to launch the DirectX application. So is it possible that
PowerPoint still has some loading internally that is forcing itself to regain
focus? Is that allowed within Windows programming? Application setting itself
to be focused even though user is trying to change focus?

I greatly appreciate any feedbacks!

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

From my observation, it seems to be more of timing thing so it is possible

that PowerPoint has something pending and needs to do something. The slide
itself has no animations, timing events or etc; it's one plain static slide
with a box to launch the DirectX application. So is it possible that
PowerPoint still has some loading internally that is forcing itself to regain
focus? Is that allowed within Windows programming? Application setting itself
to be focused even though user is trying to change focus?

Yep, Windows provides API calls to let an application set itself to the top of
the windows "stack" and there are times when it can make good sense for a program
to use them.

Something tells me that's not the case here, but to be honest, I've never been
able to provoke the same behavior here. That's not to doubt that it's happening
to you -- the same sort of thing's been reported any number of times, far too
many times for me to doubt that it happens.

But why, and under what exact circumstances, there's the tricky bit.

One thought, though ... is the system set to singleclick to open rather than to
select? Ie, open a Windows Explorer window, choose Tools, Options; go to the
General tab and check the settings for "Click items as follows"