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Hidden Popup Dialogs

Jim Shiffrin

I have a number of windows open on my PC. Frequently when the overnight Scheduled Update runs, it displays a popup, usually asking if a security is new or about a transaction. Frequently these dialogs are behind other windows on my screen. I only find them by noticing that the Update has not finished and then minimizing/moving windows around. How can I get these dialogs to be on top? (R57.16 on Windows 11, but the issue has been there for years)

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UKR

Pressing Alt-Tab to rotate through the active windows might show you the popup in question a little easier.

OTOH, I would suggest that, instead of running an unattended Scheduled Update at night you should switch to using a regular, manual One Step Update when you start Quicken in the morning.
My OSU only takes 2-3 minutes. Your OSU should take about the same time, depending on the number of transactions to process and whether you also sync to the Quicken cloud (I don't). Barely enough time to sit back and take a sip of coffee. 😉

Scheduled Update, supposedly being an unattended process, should never create popup messages and wait for the user's input. It should log an error message, skip the popup and continue.
Perhaps it might be a good idea if you reported these popups to Quicken Support on the phone, so they can pass word to the programmers.

Jim Shiffrin

OTOH, Quicken could modify their system to ensure all dialogs come up on top!

I agree I could just do manual updates - but I should not have to!

Jim Shiffrin

Yesterday the New Security popup appeared in between two open windows - enough of it was visible. Better!

jtemplin

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20442683#Comment_20442683

Windows developer here. I had to try this once in a codebase I support and knocked my head against the wall trying. By design, that's difficult to do in Windows. Why?

Every app would then try to be the topmost window, and only one can win. The Windows window manger tries to protect the user from an app stealing mouse/cursor focus from something else you're doing.
From an aesthetic viewpoint: it's really bad form for an app to hijack your window order and shove an unexpected window in your face. You really want that? I sure don't.

References:

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20101125-00/?p=12203

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20090220-00/?p=19083

Jim Shiffrin

Then why do Windows Notifications appear on top of other windows?

Chris_QPW

My personal opinion is that is the same as @UKR's. And I have an "extreme dislike" for the "Scheduled Update" feature in general because of the "side effects". To be able to do these scheduled updates Quicken has to be coded in a way were the "background scheduler program" has full access to all the functionality of Quicken, but without the GUI. They implemented this by having a "1 dot fake main window" that allows them to load either the full Quicken or the scheduler in, and it this "fake main window" has been the cause of all kinds of problems in Quicken over the years and it currently causes the main window not to adhere to all of the standard Window controls and causes "loss of focus" problems.

On the ordering of the dialogs, there are actually three modes, but because of the very fact that the scheduler is "hidden" means that one of those modes (the one that would make the most sense for most applications that need this) doesn't work in this case.

The three modes are

Dialog where anything else can be put in front of it.
Dialog where it is the topmost for the application.
System topmost. This is a very disruptive dialog that should only be used it the most extreme cases. It not only is the topmost for the whole system it is also "blocking". You can't do anything without first closing it out.

The very fact that the scheduler is hidden means that #2 pretty much becomes useless because it isn't like "you have the application open in front of you".

Getting back to why I dislike the "fake main window" so much. People don't realize all the complicated rules that are being applied for Windows to behave the way you expect when you click, hover and generally navigate through using Windows. That is the reason why it is important for application developers to use the standard libraries so that they get the behaviors that Microsoft intended. When they decide to drop these standard libraries and do it themselves they seldom can get all of the different possible use cases right. This leads to nonstandard behaviors and things like focus problems and not doing the right things on multiple displays. And that is exactly what I see in Quicken.

Chris_QPW

BTW one might be wondering how something like scheduled updates could be done in a "modern/proper" way. And you don't have to go very far to see that. Look at any of the programs in your system tray. But that would take rewriting at least the scheduler and most likely parts of Quicken, which they don't have the time to do.

Jim Shiffrin

Thanks Chris,

I remember being frustrated by the one-dot window years ago, and implementing a workaround so it did not grab focus while Q was opening.

My current process is to look at the Hidden Icons in the system tray. If the update shows in progress (or missing) then I start closing/minimizing other windows to see what Q has done this time!

Jim

Chris_QPW

Yeah, even though they have improved the handling, the grabbing of the cursor if you have "move to default button" on is still there, and the main window is still offset by that one pixel, and their "fake main window system "top" bar" still doesn't follow the set color settings or have the new snap icons when hovering over the "restore/square" system icon.

That is about the best we can expect from them, papering over the problems.