Modal forms are "Always on Top" instead of modal

[RonnyKeller]

Modal Property-Dialogues in RC2 use an "always on top"-approach instead of just being modal.

Rightclick on any chart, "Indicators...", Indicator-Box shows up
Open any other application on your PC, for example your internet-browser
Move browser window above NT-indicator window - impossible, since the NT8-window is in "Always-on-top"-mode, will cover the other window until closed. Obviously NT8-developers missed the difference between "modal" (within the application only) and "always on top" (over all other applications as well).

This gets really annoying when the hidden (non-NT8) application tries to show a modal form of its own such as a message box or something else you would need to click "ok" or so.

[NinjaTrader_JessicaP]

Hello RonnyKeller,


I have submitted a feature request to the product management team for the following feature :

This customer would like modal dialogs to not always be on top

I will follow up with more information as soon as it's available. If the feature requests already exists, a vote will be added to it.


Please let us know if there are any other ways we can help.

[RonnyKeller]

Jessica, thanks for answering but I disagree with handling this as a "feature request". NT7 did clearly NOT show this behavior, and NO software should be allowed to block other unrelated software - it's just NOT okay to cover e.g. a Word-Document with any NinjaTrader-Window preventing the user completely from reaching said word-document-window - unless I, the user, manually request a form to be "Always on top".
The modal indicator forms of NT are indeed allowed to be "modal" i.e. on top of all other NinjaTrader-Windows, but are NEVER allowed to full block OS- or third-party windows by default.

Please transform your "feature-request" into a proper bug-report - behavior as like as in NT7 is a must.

[NinjaTrader_JessicaP]

Hello Ronny,

The same teams responsible for managing and developing features are also responsible for managing bugs. They have both been made aware of this thread. Any information we add to this thread will automatically be added to our report and acted on by our development teams. Your recommendation that we use a bug tracking ID rather than a feature tracking ID has been passed on. Please let us know if there are any other ways we can help.

[NinjaTrader_Ray]

Thanks for your response.

The current behavior you are experiencing is by design and as you pointed out, we fully understand the implications. NinjaTrader 8 is has a multi-thread UI concept and as a result, implementing the approach seen in NinjaTrader 7 has its own set of aggravating limitations. The behavior implemented is simply the best tasting poison.

Either way, we are tracking this issue as JessicaP mentioned.

[edstaffin]

Lot's of applications are multithreaded and don't have this problem. I respectfully, disagree that this is "the best tasting poison". Modal dialogs should be modal to the app. I think you would be hard pressed to find any professional/commercial application that behaves this way. It's just plain wrong.
My 2 cents ... Ed

[NinjaTrader_Ray]

Lot's of applications are multithreaded and don't have this problem. I respectfully, disagree that this is "the best tasting poison". Modal dialogs should be modal to the app. I think you would be hard pressed to find any professional/commercial application that behaves this way. It's just plain wrong.
My 2 cents ... Ed

There is a difference between multi-threaded and multi-threaded UI. NinjaTrader 7 for example is multi-threaded where NinjaTrader 8 has a multi-threaded user interface, very different. I agree, modal windows should be modal to the app, no argument there.That being said, we ran into severe limitations with that approach.

[edstaffin]

Thanks for the response. I am aware of the differences you are talking about. As I am a developer first and a trader 35th or worse :-), I would be very interested in understanding the severe limitations. Just being nosy. I do know however, that having a dialog that is in your face and you can't get it out of the way when switching to another app is *really* annoying.

[NinjaTrader_Ray]

For sure, its really annoying.

• We ran into issues where having a modal window open created a confusing state in multi-threaded UI. Some UI's were interactive, others (that shared the thread with the modal window) were locked.
• This is a problem since the user would not understand why some windows were "frozen"
• To get around this, we simulated a single thread UI by making all windows disabled until the modal window was dealt with
• This further created a problem by where a window with "Always on top" enabled had a modal window pop up underneath it, now since all windows are disabled from interaction, the whole app would be frozen and you have to kill it via task manager
• To get around that, we forced the modal window to be "Always on top" and thus we arrived at where we are at today

These were our experiences through the development process and ultimately we all felt that the current implementation, although annoying was less annoying than anything that came before it.

[edstaffin]

Ok, I'll play dumb. (and please don't take this as me trying to tell you how to do your job). Why can't you query the focused app and make sure your z-indexes are at least 1 less than the "foreign" app's zindex? I haven't played with this in a long time, but I'm pretty sure you can dynamically assign z-indexes. Am I being too simplistic?

[NinjaTrader_Ray]

Ok, I'll play dumb. (and please don't take this as me trying to tell you how to do your job). Why can't you query the focused app and make sure your z-indexes are at least 1 less than the "foreign" app's zindex? I haven't played with this in a long time, but I'm pretty sure you can dynamically assign z-indexes. Am I being too simplistic?

Now you are asking me questions above my paygrade

What I am sure about is that we are monitoring this issue. I will add your thoughts to our tracker for this item.

[edstaffin]

Cool! Can I get a raise?

[RonnyKeller]

Cool! Can I get a raise?

LOL - I'm a long term software developer, too, so I second that

[misova]

Add my vote please.
The blocking behavior of NT8 windows are a little bit annoying for me too.

[NinjaTrader_JessicaP]

Your vote for this feature has been added, misova. Please let us know if there are any other ways we can help.