[Lazarus] LHelp and LazMouseAndKeyInput package

[R.Smith]

On 2021/02/22 10:52, Juha Manninen via lazarus wrote:
>
> Yes, in Windows terminology bringing to front means blinking an icon 
> in Taskbar.
> A Lazarus user however wants to see the help window right after 
> pressing F1.

YES, this is very important.

I am not looking to weigh in on the issue of how Lazarus help works, but 
I can say something about Windows and the next comment:.


>
> The name is not BlinkAnIconInTaskbar().
> If you know how to fix it, please do. I don't use Windows much myself. 
> Does this idea go against some Windows convention?

Blinking and Bringing to Front are two very distinct ideas in Windows 
and two different use-cases, though they often coincide. If I recall the 
Microsoft discussions correctly, the idea wasn't to ever blink when a 
user clicks the application into the foreground, or for instance pulls 
up the Help. Blinking the taskbar was only to be done if your 
application is *in the Background* AND something happens that is 
important for which you need to grab the User's attention towards it. 
(If your program is in the foreground/focused, you have carte-blanche on 
how to flash it or grab attention and don't need a flickering taskbar 
icon specifically, though *also* doing it isn't a sin)

The event that lead to you needing to blink the taskbar icon may well 
also require bringing to front, but it might also not (the judgement is 
left up to the software designer).

A good example is the Lazarus IDE after a debug session in Windows. 
After running your program (i.e. once your program terminates) Lazarus 
will both pop to front *and* flash the taskbar icon IF, and only IF, the 
debugged program was the focused desktop window. If I switch to any 
other program while the debugged program was running (pushing more apps 
onto the "focus" stack of the desktrop manager), Lazarus correctly does 
not "steal" the focus back by popping to front, but it does still flash 
the taskbar icon to make the user aware.

With the above in mind, I'd say when the user press F1 (or invoke help 
in any way) there should be a help window popping up/to 
front/focusing/etc, but no need for any blinking. The user KNOWS/EXPECTS 
what is coming, no need to try and draw their attention to it.

A final note: Lots of Windows users HATE taskbar icons blinking, they 
turn it off. (Just search google on how to turn it off, you will find 
oodles of hate rants).


For more info, see:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/winuser/nf-winuser-flashwindowex


Cheers,

Ryan


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