Track view still disappears off-screen

[senorpablo]

I can't believe this issue still hasn't been addressed. Working with a crew of animators now, sharing files and some have multiple monitors and some don't. When someone opens a file that was previously saved on a multi-monitor rig with the track view on the second screen, the track view is nowhere to be found.

I know there is a work-around with an obscure windows proceedure. You shouldn't have to jump through hoops. New Max users might waste hours trying to locate a solution to something which should just work out-of-the-box.

After decades, this trivial issue still hasn't been addressed. 

Autodesk: Fix it!

[jonathan.matthews]

Hello-

Thank you for your posting.  I am searching our interal database and have not found where this track view issue has been reported before.  My search continues and I will let you know if or when I find something.  In the meantime could please report your findings / the issue of track view disappearing off of the screen to the following site:

http://download.autodesk.com/us/support/report_a_bug.html?SelProduct=3dsMax

The more times something is reported the better.  This is a direct link to our development team.  

Once you have reported it please post the reference number back here for the information of other users.  

Thank you and best regards.

[Steve_Curley]

Jonathan,
I believe this is a specific instance of a generic issue with dialogs in Max. On a dual monitor system, open various dialogs and position them on the 2nd monitor. Remove the 2nd monitor and attempt to open those dialogs - they will not be visible.
What's really needed is a mechanism which detects the number of monitors connected and also determines (on open of a dialog) that the dialog position would be outside the coordinates of a single monitor and moves them appropriately.

I think there's a script over on http://scriptspot.com which can be used to move them back, but it would be so much better if this could be done automatically. It's not really a bug as such (IMO) so may be better suited to a Feature Request or a Small Annoying Thing post.

[senorpablo]

Steve is correct in that this happens with any/most dialogs which are off screen.

I would disagree that this isn't a bug, however. Almost certainly, this would be a Microsoft Windows certification issue. 

[Steve_Curley]

It's a debateable point - the dialogs are saving their screen positions (and restoring them) as they should. Not Max's fault that the underlying system/hardware got altered. I take your point that it needs addressing though. Even if reported as a bug I'd still post it on one of the other links - worth it for the sake of a couple of mins online 😉

[senorpablo]

Not Max's fault? It is the programs responsibility to deal with, and adapt to, changed hardware configurations. These posibilities have to be designed and programmed for, it doesn't happen by magic. This isn't a burden which is unique to Max. Every Windows program needs to deal with these issues, and the majority of them do it correctly and well. 

Max saves off the old position of the window, and when a new window is opened(track view or otherwise) it doesn't bother to check if the window co-ordinates are still valid, rather it just slaps up the window where it was last time the scene was saved, regardless if that screen is still present or not. 

Max doesn't handle this correctly and it never has. There are posts on the net dating back years which document this. I would guess that the number of hours wasted by users trying to recover missing windows over the years is countless times more than the amount of effort it would take to fix this issue with Max. To say it's not a bug because it wasn't designed and implemented correcly in the first place is a bit silly. Let's not muddy the waters with symantics; it just needs to get fixed. Multiple monitors have been a standared feature of Windows since at least 2001. 

According to Microsoft, it is the programs responsibility to handle this situation:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd162827(v=vs.85).aspx

To save, and later restore, the position of a window when an application exits, use the GetWindowPlacement andSetWindowPlacement functions. However, check that the position is still valid before using it because the monitor could have been moved or removed from the system. The application displays the window on the primary monitor if theHMONITOR of a window is invalid.