Explorer Right-Click Bug

[John Ingram]

Perhaps this has been brought up before. I've had this problem for a very long time, and there's a real strong argument that it's not even a bug. But I just upgraded from 4.1.x to 4.5 and figured I'd check to see if it had been "fixed" (again, you first have to acknowledge that it's a bug to use the term "fixed"... just go with me here) and it still happens.

Anyway, the symptom is one of user confusion, but one that TextPad might want to consider. Many of us are accustomed to right-clicking files in Explorer an selecting "TextPad" from the list, at which point the file opens in TextPad. Awesome, of course. This may or may not even be a feature of TextPad, as I don't remember if that happened automatically of if I set that up separately.

Anyway, the problem is when you're already in TextPad and you go tell TextPad to open a file. In the box that pops up (which is, of course, a component of Windows Explorer), you can forget that you're in a "File-Open" dialog box and out of habit you can right click the file and select TextPad. Game over. TextPad crashes and does not recover.

Again, could be defined as user stupidity (although I prefer "user confusion" in this case)... it's easy to forget that the reason you're in Explorer is because you did "File - Open". I don't personally know enough about MFC to know if this is something from which it is even possible to recover... just thought I'd bring it up.

Thanks,
John

[Andreas]

This is a Windows issue.
Try the same procedure with any other program that uses the standard file open dialog.

This problem is also limited to some (not all) Win versions.

WinNT4 has the problem
Win2K does not have the problem

The fact that Textpad appears in Explorers context menu is caused by the association of a file extension to a program
These associations can be set in Explorer - or by any other program like Textpad. Look in Configure/Preferences/Associated Files to see those where the association was made by Textpad.
Other associations may exist but were created outside Textpad - you should see those when you look them up in Explorer.

[John Ingram]

> Win2K does not have the problem

Thanks for the reply. Good and thorough... the only problem I have with it is that you say that Win2K does not have the problem. I'm running Win2K Server. No big deal, though... as I said, I just wanted to bring it up.

Thanks,
John

[Andreas]

At work we have about a dozen machines with Win2K and about a dozen WinNT4.

All NT4 machines show the problem (with textpad or other programs), all 2K machines don't show it.

Sorry if I took a wrong conclusion from that...

[Daniel Skantze]

First off, Hi John Ingram, I know you from Das Musik

Well, I am running Win2k and I have the same (or similar) problem. But to me it happens when I do this right-click operation in windows explorer. NOT when I do it from the open dialog as John describes.

I am running windows explorer. I right click the file. I choose "textpad" in the context menu, and then explorer hangs (I need to kill it to exit). This error does occur when textpad is not open. If it is already running, the error does not occur.

Any insight on this?

-D

[John Ingram]

Daniel,

Sorry to disappoint, but I don't know Dan Musik. People on the internet often confuse me with Johnnie Ingram of the Debian Linux project (aka "netgod"). I am most assuredly not him, although I've chatted with him in the past on #linux in IRC.

Anyway, that's an interesting problem you have there. So it sounds like the "right-click-on-TextPad" thing does not work for you at all if TextPad is open. I do not have that problem. The only time I have the problem is when I do it from an Explorer dialog that TextPad opened (such as File-Open or probably also File-Save and all the rest).

Of course, if it hasn't been made clear yet to anybody that I freely accept that this is not a TextPad bug, I'll just say it again: I accept that this is not a TextPad bug At this point, we're just making conversation.

Thanks,
John

[Daniel Skantze]

Oh, sorry for the confusion. Thanks a lot for the reply though

On the same computer where I run textpad I run an app called speechweb. It is a heavy VoiceXML browser. Appearently it seems like speechweb causes textpad's behavior, when I don't run it, it works fine. Just for the record: I don't blame textpad for this behaviour

I used to work for Pipebeach, the company behind speechweb. I could mail their support and report this bug. From a technical point of view, what causes this problem? I read that outlook and a few other apps blocked DDE messages and that fact caused this bug. Could it be the same problem with speechweb?

regards
Daniel Skantze