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Stop Rainmeter From Capturing Ctrl/Alt/Shift and Mouse input?

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CoelacanthsKill
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Joined: May 17th, 2017, 1:55 am

Stop Rainmeter From Capturing Ctrl/Alt/Shift and Mouse input?

Post by CoelacanthsKill »

Hi, I created a basic crosshair overlay that uses a transparent image with a crosshair and Rainmeter for a game that doesn't have a crosshair on at all times. I run the game in windowed mode and have the image set to "Stay Topmost" and "Click Through" in Rainmeter.. The only problem is the game I play uses Ctrl, Alt, and Shift a lot while the mouse is always hidden. When using Rainmeter though, pressing any of those keys in game make the mouse pointer pop up and the game lags like hell as if I'm alt-tabbed out. Sometimes I cant click in game, and have to let go of all keys and then click once to refocus on the game window, and another to click in game. The game runs just fine when I'm using my mouse, any letters, and space, but Rainmeter starts to glitch out when any of the mentioned keys are pressed. Is there anyway to prevent Rainmeter from capturing keys at all?
Bekarfel
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Joined: May 16th, 2012, 5:38 am

Re: Stop Rainmeter From Capturing Ctrl/Alt/Shift and Mouse input?

Post by Bekarfel »

The documentation only states that the CTRL key will override the click-through behavior, however I have confirmed that pressing Shift or ALT will also override the click-through behavior, although the behavior is not consistent with the CTRL behavior. With Shift or ALT the first click will usually pass through to the underlying window, however additional clicks with the shift or ALT key still pressed will override the click-through. The override only seems to happen if there is some kind of activity on the skin while the undocumented-featurey key is being pressed.
moshi wrote:there are many Rainmeter skins that aren't really useful, so let's add another one.
jsmorley wrote:I have good news and bad news.
First the bad news. [...] We would be happy to have this happen and would love to work with anyone who is feeling ambitious.
Now the good news.
I lied, there isn't any good news...
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CoelacanthsKill
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Joined: May 17th, 2017, 1:55 am

Re: Stop Rainmeter From Capturing Ctrl/Alt/Shift and Mouse input?

Post by CoelacanthsKill »

Bekarfel wrote:The documentation only states that the CTRL key will override the click-through behavior, however I have confirmed that pressing Shift or ALT will also override the click-through behavior, although the behavior is not consistent with the CTRL behavior. With Shift or ALT the first click will usually pass through to the underlying window, however additional clicks with the shift or ALT key still pressed will override the click-through. The override only seems to happen if there is some kind of activity on the skin while the undocumented-featurey key is being pressed.
Any way to completely disable the override?
Bekarfel
Posts: 217
Joined: May 16th, 2012, 5:38 am

Re: Stop Rainmeter From Capturing Ctrl/Alt/Shift and Mouse input?

Post by Bekarfel »

Considering that only CTRL is mentioned in the documentation, I think submitting a bug report on the shift and alt modifiers would be appropriate. However I don't think the ctrl override will ever be removed, because it would be possible to create a situation where a skin cannot be removed
moshi wrote:there are many Rainmeter skins that aren't really useful, so let's add another one.
jsmorley wrote:I have good news and bad news.
First the bad news. [...] We would be happy to have this happen and would love to work with anyone who is feeling ambitious.
Now the good news.
I lied, there isn't any good news...
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Brian
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Joined: November 24th, 2011, 1:42 am
Location: Utah

Re: Stop Rainmeter From Capturing Ctrl/Alt/Shift and Mouse input?

Post by Brian »

Bekarfel wrote:Considering that only CTRL is mentioned in the documentation, I think submitting a bug report on the shift and alt modifiers would be appropriate. However I don't think the ctrl override will ever be removed, because it would be possible to create a situation where a skin cannot be removed
We are aware of the alt and shift overrides, but have not documented that behavior, so no need for a bug report. We will look into updating the docs to account for them.

CoelacanthsKill wrote:Any way to completely disable the override?
There is no way to disable this behavior, and we have no plans to allow for it as it would quickly be abused.

-Brian
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CoelacanthsKill
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Joined: May 17th, 2017, 1:55 am

Re: Stop Rainmeter From Capturing Ctrl/Alt/Shift and Mouse input?

Post by CoelacanthsKill »

Brian wrote:
There is no way to disable this behavior, and we have no plans to allow for it as it would quickly be abused.
I don't understand how it would be abused, but I would assume a user would have to confirm the action and understand the consequences.

Could it at least be re-mappable to a different key?
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Brian
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Re: Stop Rainmeter From Capturing Ctrl/Alt/Shift and Mouse input?

Post by Brian »

CoelacanthsKill wrote:I don't understand how it would be abused, but I would assume a user would have to confirm the action and understand the consequences.

Could it at least be re-mappable to a different key?
The purpose of holding down the CTRL key to override certain settings is because an author can effectively disable all forms of interaction of a skin and Rainmeter itself. For example, a skin might manually disable all the following: the tray icon, right-click context menu, forcing the skin the to be click through. There would be no way 'easy' to get to the Manage dialog and even close Rainmeter properly in these cases - let alone a way to activate other skins.

We provided the CTRL key override so that the user has the control over Rainmeter and the skins they choose to make/install. We did not want 'skin authors' to control this.

We have a long history of using the CTRL key to override certain behavior and we have no plans on changing it or allowing it to be changed.

-Brian
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CoelacanthsKill
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Joined: May 17th, 2017, 1:55 am

Re: Stop Rainmeter From Capturing Ctrl/Alt/Shift and Mouse input?

Post by CoelacanthsKill »

I just want to be able to make my own overlay for a game, and Ctrl is one of the most used keys for the game. There is no other keys I can remap the game's key to.
Necrid989
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Joined: May 10th, 2015, 9:07 pm

Re: Stop Rainmeter From Capturing Ctrl/Alt/Shift and Mouse input?

Post by Necrid989 »

Brian,

Solution Outline:
In the Rainmeter application settings (see screenshot below) provide a *dropdown-choice* that allow the end-user to change the keys that provide the OVERRIDES that are essential to the program.
Choices are:
- Click-Through Override:
-- Left Shift
-- Right Shift
- Options OverRide:
-- Left CTRL
-- Right CTRL

I know it seems like a simple thing, but gamers often use Left-Shift and Left-CTRL to crouch/sprint/etc. Games like FPS, often 'hold the mouse position in the center of the screen'. If a meter is there (even transparent images) if you're crouching/sprinting and try to shoot, you click out to your desktop because the overrides (thus death). Allowing the user to move the Overrides to the Right-side of their Keyboard, will fix this, will still maintaining an absolute override that gives the End-User ultimate control over skins/meters.

Thanks for hearing me out.

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Brian
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Location: Utah

Re: Stop Rainmeter From Capturing Ctrl/Alt/Shift and Mouse input?

Post by Brian »

The problem with this approach is you will presumably want to "preserve" these settings so when Rainmeter exits and restarts, those overrides still will have been saved somewhere and still be valid. Saving these settings is the issue. We basically have 3 choices. The registry (which we don't save much information at all), the global settings Rainmeter.ini file, and the Rainmeter.data file. We make no secret where settings are stored, and some skin authors manually write to these places within their skins. While we do not recommend manually saving settings from within skins or scripts, we cannot prevent it either. I personally cannot stand it when I download a skin, and the skin changes my work area, or manually unloads my other skins. Having a skin manually change my CTRL override would really piss me off.

This is the exact reason why we will not allow the changing or disabling of the CTRL+Click override feature. This is an essential and necessary function of Rainmeter.


Having said that, on a related note, we have discussed some sort of "game mode" that will unload skins on your desktop (or possibly just on selected monitors) and also the possibility of preventing redraws on occluded skins which will help with resources. These are just in discussion phase at the moment, so no promises.

-Brian