Vista - Resizing Contacts child windows: bug remains

I have a problem in V.12 of not being able to resize the window that
opens if I want to add or edit a contact. If the window gets too
tall, the command buttons disappear below the bottom of the screen.
Trying to grab the top of the window to resize it downwards doesn't
work; the moment I press the mouse button, the whole window jumps a
title-bar's depth downwards. The only way to access the buttons is
to maximize the window. I was hoping that this would be fixed in
V.14, but it hasn't been. Has anyone else noticed this?
--
Noel

I am using WLM with pop accounts on XP SP 2.
I do not have that problem.
--
Ronald Sommer

"Ildhund" <jnllb@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:#K$jwU8GJHA.3504@xxxxxx

"Ildhund" <jnllb@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:#K$jwU8GJHA.3504@xxxxxx
Looks like your DPI is too high? Do you have this symptom with DPI 96?


Try using the keyboard to move off screen windows even more off-screen.
E.g., press Alt-Space,M then CursorUp.


Even with the keyboard? ; )

BTW do you even need to see the buttons? E.g. do they have accelerator keys
associated with their actions? Or have you tried tabbing to the buttons you can't see,
(then press Spacebar to action one which is off screen.)


What's a contacts child window? <eg>


Good luck

Robert
---

"Robert Aldwinckle" <robald@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:eeP1oEBHJHA.3884@xxxxxxYes - I am on 96, but I should have mentioned that this is XPSP3. I
can't be sure that this didn't start happening after installing SP3.
The problem hasn't arisen, as far as I can recall, with any other
window in any other app or situation.
I've tried every variation of the window menu. Move moves it - but
only downwards. Size looks as if it might help, but in fact nothing
happens. The bizarre thing is that it also happens on another
machine where I have V.14 installed, so it's not machine specific
If I tab onwards from wherever I happen to be, I can't see which (if
any) of the buttons I've managed to activate. I did discover,
though, that 'OK' or 'Yes' or 'Add' or whatever happens not to be
'Cancel' or 'No' does seem to have focus by default, so hitting
Enter probably works - but I can't be sure, because the window
closes, and I then have to go and see whether whatever I was doing
stuck. And I can't always remember how many buttons there are in the
different types of window. Incidentally, they don't resize sideways,
either.
It's what my sister's kids use to escape after curfew... Wasn't the
explanation in the first line of my OP enough? Or do you have a
better term?

Thanks for getting back on this one, Robert. Ron Summer doesn't see
this on SP2; any SP3 users out there who'd care to have a look?
--
Noel

"Ildhund" <jnllb@xxxxxx> wrote in message news:#N#zORCHJHA.3884@xxxxxx
FWIW I have XPsp3 too and use DPI 120 with 1152x864


It's bizarre if Move moves it "only downwards". ; }

FWIW when I move an Edit Contact window using that keyboard technique
(with repeated presses of CursorUp) I can keep going until only
the bottom border of the window shows. ; )

BTW I have simulated your difficulty by making my Taskbar stop Auto-hiding
and by making it huge. That hides the buttons on an Edit Contact window
nicely. ; )

Also, make sure that your mouse pointer is well away from the window
you are moving and will not be passed over by the move.


That's where the Alt-Space,M CursorUp,... comes in handy.
E.g. the buttons (and their labels) are hidden until I use that.
So I can see (in this case) that Save is Alt-S and Cancel is Alt-C
so I just hit Enter, to end the Alt-Space,M and then do whichever
of those two I want, e.g. Alt-C. The Save button is highlighted
so I suspect that hitting Enter again would be the same as using
the Save button. For this to be helpful (e.g. in order to see any
accelerators) you will also need to *uncheck*
Hide underlined letters for keyboard shortcuts until I press the Alt key
(in Display Properties, Appearance tab, Effects)



I'd never used the feature before. <eg>


Let's get him to try my simulation then... ; )

BTW it looks to me that although the window can be resized horizontally
it rejects any attempts to resize it vertically, except by the Maximize command,
as you noted. Using an Edit Contact window which does fit within the Display
area (e.g. with Taskbar Auto-hidden) you can see this clearly by using
Alt-Space,S CursorDown then try CursorUp. I.e., the first CursorDown selects
the bottom border as the one to be resized, then the CursorUp should make
the window smaller but nothing changes.

There's one other thing you could try which would be related to using Maximize--
Cascade Windows. Minimize all windows you don't want involved in the operation
first; e.g. press Win-D, then restore just the Edit Contact window; then apply the
Cascade Windows. Hmm... is that helpful for you? It looks as if it might be with
a normal sized Taskbar but with my huge Taskbar it is still too big vertically.
So, if not, (quickly) right-click Taskbar to Undo Cascade... ; )


HTH

Robert
---

"Robert Aldwinckle" <robald@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:2A74A8C0-B7C1-4C7D-B28A-6FCFEA5B1BC0@xxxxxx
Robert, thanks for all your explanations and suggestions. I'm trying
them out - but in the meantime, I've discovered that this odd
behaviour only occurs if I have a High Contrast display setting. I
had to turn it off to view yet another web page that just didn't
work with HC on, and when I went back to WLMail and played with
these funny windows, I found that dragging worked in many areas of
the window that it didn't before.

This phenomenon is AFAIK confined to the Add and Edit Contact
windows - all others seem to function as expected. I deduce that
there is some fancy coding there that just doesn't work when the
things that HC disables are disabled.

I complained to a webmaster recently about a lack of functionality
on one of his pages. He assured me that the page complied in every
respect with some readability standard or other, so I didn't need to
use HC. IOW I have to turn HC off in order to view
standard-compliant pages; the idea that a user might have HC enabled
by default is clearly foreign to those who write such standards. It
is, after all, not just a question of hitting Alt-Shift-PrtSc to
toggle a setting - all sorts of other settings (button styles and
sizes, fonts) revert to the default and I find myself back in W95
days.

I am quite sure that not all of the WLMail GUI has been tested in an
XP HC setting, and I suspect that apps will to an increasing extent
aim for compliance with the aforementioned standard so its designers
can just say 'you don't need HC to use this'. There has to be a
happy medium somewhere so that even those with less than perfect
vision can - perhaps by adjusting something somewhere - make full
use of the app.

I long to submit a bug report about this, but I've yet to find an
approved beta tester to do it.
--
Noel