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John 2017-02-18 10:23
Environment: win7 professional, three samsung 204B monitors, all at 1280x960, Intel 630 integrated graphics.
If I go to windows > display > adjust resolution shows I have three monitors in this order 1, 2, 3. It shows the leftmost one, 1, as the primary
But Ultramon > display settings shows I have three monitors in this order, 3, 1, 2. If shows the leftmost one, 3 as the primary
Because of this difference I'll refer to them as left, middle, and right to avoid confusion. Just pointing that out, its not really my question
I use the final release (9.8) of Lotus 1-2-3 a lot, which was written in 1998.
The program always starts on the left monitor. Even if I drag it over to the middle monitor then close it (whether maximized or not), it always starts on the left monitor. And once its on the middle monitor, its dialog windows continue to show up on the left monitor. Maybe because its so old windows does not know how to handle it. So I
thought I would try out ultramon to see if I could get it to always start maximized on the middle monitor, and have its dialog windows also appear on the middle monitor. I played around with ultramon settings but could never get it to behave quite like I wanted, so I uninstalled ultramon.
Well now, with no ultramon installed at all, the lotus 1-2-3 dialog windows appear on the left monitor for about 1/2 a second and then jump over to the middle monitor! So I completely uninstalled lotus 1-2-3, erased all vestiges of it from the registry, but these jumping dialogs continue.
Can someone:
help me out on using ultramon for what I seek, which is to have this program always start maximized on the middle monitor AND have its dialog windows be on the middle monitor,
AND/OR
tell me where within windows the setting is that tells an app on which monitor to load itself, and its dialog windows. I'd like to go back to having everything appear on the left monitor.
Thanks!
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Christian Studer 2017-02-20 01:25
I'm not sure why the behavior would have changed, does the Intel software for your video card have any settings to control window positions?
Windows itself doesn't have an application positioning feature.
You might be able to do what you want via UltraMon, but would need to test this as not all applications can be positioned via UltraMon. To set this up, open properties for the shortcut you use to launch Lotus, then select the UltraMon - Window tab and configure settings as desired. In addition you'll need to run the PositionDialogs script, this will take care of moving dialog windows over to the monitor with the main application.
Regarding the different monitor numbering: this won't cause problems but is a bit confusing, to fix this go to UltraMon menu > Display Settings, select the monitor whose number you want to change and click on Actions, then select Change Monitor Number from the menu.
Christian Studer - www.realtimesoft.com
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John 2017-02-21 10:31
Thanks for your help man, we're getting there...
"does the Intel software for your video card have any settings to control window positions?"
It does not. Its Intel HD 630 onboard graphics btw
"open properties for the shortcut you use to launch Lotus, then select the UltraMon - Window tab"
Ultramon is running, but when I do this it only shows the 6 tabs you always see, security/details/prevversions/general/shortcut/compatibility. I am sure that the first time I installed ultramon there was indeed a tab for it here though. Weird. Anyway, I just used the tray icon instead to create and edit a new shortcut and its now starting on monitor 2 maximized, so that part is all set, thanks a lot.
"Regarding the different monitor numbering: this won't cause problems but is a bit confusing, to fix this go to UltraMon menu > Display Settings, select the monitor whose number you want to change and click on Actions, then select Change Monitor Number from the menu."
done.
"In addition you'll need to run the PositionDialogs script, this will take care of moving dialog windows over to the monitor with the main application."
great, did that it works.
Couple questions.
- how do I have positiondialogs.vbs autorun so I never have to click on it?
Is there a change I can make within positiondialogs.vbs so that its effects are instantaneous? Cuz right now it is indeed working as it should, it relocates my dialogs to my middle monitor, HOWEVER there is a delay of one second or so, which I'd rather do without.
One more question - does positiondialog make a change to a windows setting? This is my main question - cuz last time I uninstalled ultramon this dialog relocation and its delay both persisted. I must have loaded the vbs at some time in the past perhaps.
I'd really like to know who to do "an unpositiondialog". Thanks
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John 2017-02-21 11:50
positiondialog.vbs does not seem to be working correctly for me.
1) when I type extremely slowly the dialogs will always initially appear on monitor 1, then take a second to move over to monitor 2, and everything works fine. But when I type quickly like normal(btw lotus 1-2-3 menus are mostly keyboard driven, so the menu dialogs appear as fast as you can type), the menus will freeze, perhaps because I am not waiting on them.
2) when there is a dialog with a dialog, it still appears on monitor 1 no matter what. For example, if I right-click on a chart, it brings up the chart properties dialog, which appears on monitor 1 at first, waits a second, then moves over to monitor 2. But if I then click on a drop down within that dialog, the options it presents (series, chart types, data, etc) still appear on monitor 1.
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Christian Studer 2017-02-22 02:39
1) I'm not sure what exactly would cause this, the script periodically enumerates open windows and moves child windows which aren't on the same monitor as the parent window, not sure though why this would cause a problem for Lotus.
2) There's probably no fix for this, but you could try if the PositionWnds script will move the dropdown list as well, you would need to set the ENUM_APP_WNDS_ONLY setting in the script to False. Let me know if you have any questions about configuring the script.
Regarding the PositionDialogs script:
to have it start automatically, place the script into the C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp folder.
By default the script moves dialogs every two seconds, to change this open the script in a text editor and change the value for the INTERVAL setting on line 2.
The script doesn't make changes to system settings. If you uninstall UltraMon while the script is running, it will continue to run until you restart the system.
To terminate the script, open Task Manager, then terminate the wscript.exe process.
Christian Studer - www.realtimesoft.com
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John 2017-02-22 09:31
I tried changing the positiondialogs.vbs delay to 0, then also to 0.01, but its just too slow for me, I really need it to be instantaneous and there's always a delay. First it appears on window 1, then disappears for a moment, then appears on window 2.
Your second idea sounds good but do not see any reference to ENUM_APP_WNDS_ONLY within PositionWnds.vbs
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John 2017-02-22 10:55
"Windows itself doesn't have an application positioning feature"
This statement surprised me. Even without a program like ultramon installed, when you open a program on one monitor, then move it to another monitor, then close it, doesn't windows "remember" to open it on the second monitor the next time? I thought that was the normal behavior of windows. Or maybe its firefox or lotus that does this. Appreciate any insight you have on that, maybe something to search for in the registry if you know where to look.
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Christian Studer 2017-02-23 03:01
You'll have the same delay with PositionWnds, there's no way around this. The ENUM_APP_WNDS_ONLY option is on line 8 of the script.
Regarding application positioning: this is handled by the application, most applications remember the position of their windows, but some don't.
Christian Studer - www.realtimesoft.com
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John 2017-02-23 08:40
Thanks I was looking at positionwnd, should have been looking at positionwnds
One last question and I'll get out of you hair - can you tell me where for instance notepad.exe "remembers" its position? Is it a registry key?
I'd like to play around with similar settings for lotus, see if there is anything to be gained. Thanks!
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Christian Studer 2017-02-23 15:17
Notepad stores the window size and position in the registry under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Notepad, but an application can handle this any way it likes, for example it could also store the settings in a file.
Christian Studer - www.realtimesoft.com
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