Hard Light Productions Forums

Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: Aardwolf on February 21, 2010, 03:33:14 pm

Title: "Fatal" Warning Message
Post by: Aardwolf on February 21, 2010, 03:33:14 pm
Warning messages, in fullscreen mode (and probably error messages as well) come up behind  FS2. So the screen goes black, and the cursor changes, but the dialog box isn't visible. There's no way to see where the buttons are, except maybe based on what the cursor looks like. Alt-tabbing is useless, because the dialog box is treated as part of the FS2 window; it activates a different window (but not the warning window), but the screen remains black except for the cursor. The only real way to proceed is by memorizing the keyboard hotkeys, or more often, pressing 'Esc' until FS2 quits. So what might have been a trivial warning forces the user to quit the program. And Istill have no idea what it said until I go into the error logfile.

Although the issue can be avoided by running in a window (but not a fullscreen window), that's really not an acceptable solution, especially considering that you'll still have no idea what the particular message you missed said.

Zacam on IRC seemed to think this doesn't matter...
Title: Re: "Fatal" Warning Message
Post by: Dragon on February 21, 2010, 03:39:13 pm
Try the key between left control and alt (I forgot how it's called).
It should make start menu pop up and let you see the warning.
At least, that's how does it worked for me in other games, I didn't need that in FS.
Title: Re: "Fatal" Warning Message
Post by: Jeff Vader on February 21, 2010, 03:41:44 pm
Try the key between left control and alt (I forgot how it's called).
Windows key?

Warning messages, in fullscreen mode (and probably error messages as well) come up behind  FS2. So the screen goes black, and the cursor changes, but the dialog box isn't visible. There's no way to see where the buttons are, except maybe based on what the cursor looks like. Alt-tabbing is useless, because the dialog box is treated as part of the FS2 window; it activates a different window (but not the warning window), but the screen remains black except for the cursor. The only real way to proceed is by memorizing the keyboard hotkeys, or more often, pressing 'Esc' until FS2 quits. So what might have been a trivial warning forces the user to quit the program. And Istill have no idea what it said until I go into the error logfile.

Although the issue can be avoided by running in a window (but not a fullscreen window), that's really not an acceptable solution, especially considering that you'll still have no idea what the particular message you missed said.
What variety of error messages could a player get? I've only stumbled into firewall popups asking about what to do with the FSO executable. Adding an exception for it into the firewall's rules solves it.
Title: Re: "Fatal" Warning Message
Post by: Aardwolf on February 21, 2010, 03:43:40 pm
Nonono, I mean FS2's error dialog. Y'know, the one that pops up when FS2 has an error. Or a warning.
Title: Re: "Fatal" Warning Message
Post by: Jeff Vader on February 21, 2010, 03:44:27 pm
Ah.
Title: Re: "Fatal" Warning Message
Post by: Zacam on February 21, 2010, 04:06:29 pm
It doesn't because the way to run a Debug build is usually in windowed mode. (Necessary for Devs, as then being able to actually run and see the Debugger is important, and you can't do that if FSO is trying to fullscreen)

Some systems don't manage to be able to bring up the background Warning error dialogues. The problem would be if they didn't happen and or caused your system to crash when they happened.
Title: Re: "Fatal" Warning Message
Post by: utops on February 28, 2010, 04:17:13 pm
When this happens to me i make call for windows task manager(alt+ctrl+delete) and alt tab to it to assume control over the desktop ,after this i can see output of the error pop-up window.