More CJ 17 beta 3 shadow woes

I'm running from home via VPN today with the office2013 White theme with that shadow around the frame. This is quite painful as when the video streaming occurs when the frame displays, including during resizing, the user sees the shadow window display before the app frame displays. On startup I see the shadow display by itself and then the app frame. Then if I grab the frame to resize via the inside of the frame, when I let up on the cursor, the shadow displays and then the frame displays. Also, if I grab the shadow to resize, I get only one screen resize/update and then the resize cursor goes away. That is, no real sizing dynamics occur. However, I have found that if I mouse down and wait for a second or two, and then drag, I do get continuous update. Is this due to yet another timer being used or network lag and the lack of synchronization of the updates?

I suspect I will see the same issues running on the cloud as the video streaming technology is similar.

I think this shadow software needs to be reworked. Instead of one layered window that lies under the entire frame, four separate windows should be used. Or perhaps a region that excludes the app frame rectangle needs to be used. And what about deferring window position changes or something else to better synchronize displays? Visual Studio 2013 has four glow/shadow windows. And I have no problem resizing using those windows over VPN.

I also suspect the hooking code has problems too. Besides other issues I have posted related to the shadow, we have experienced what appears to be lockups with the application and when I debug break into the process, all that appears to be running is the hooking code. Messages don't seem to be making it to the application for processing and we have to restart. When this occurs, it is as if we have a modal dialog up (that's what we thought at first) except that when clicking on the frame we get the Windows "bell" ding-dinging us (if running with sound turned up).

Drawing semi-transparent graphics will always cause performance issues when run remotely, this is the reason why most of remote desktop software disable DWM and other niceties by default. Creating 4 semi trasparent underlying windows instead of one layered will probably make it a little bit faster for the price of reduced functionality and customizability of the shadow, but it might cause other unexpected issues in its turn. One possible solution that I can suggest, and please tell me what you think about it, is to optionally disable all frame shadows when connected remotely.

@rhd: I can fully support your last reply!

Hi Alexander,

would there be an option not to draw a full solid black rectangle for the Shadow but just to leave out the whole internal part?

see the attached animated gif (I hope the forum software does not break it up)

@scottp: no not yet, I haven't dived that deep into windows painting details (yet) - I'll check this. Would you mind to provide information where you also have added ExcludeClipRect code in the sources, as we are facing flickering issues, too. I'd really appreciate this (and maybe others, too!).

EDIT: Unfortunately adding this line does not change the effect.

I have inserted this code here:

void CXTPFrameShadow::OnPaint()
{
    if (NULL == m_pPCD)
    {
        ComputeData();
    }

    CPaintDC dc(this);
    dc.ExcludeClipRect(m_pPCD->clientRect);


Is this right? Maybe we need your other ExcludeClipRect additions, too?