Resizing in windowed mode problematic?

[ThvN]

Hello, I've been playing in windowed mode for a while, but have come across a strange problem.

If I try to resize the window, when I activate the drag (double) arrow on the edge, sometimes it will only move in one direction, or very slowly, especially vertically. I just had an issue where I dragged the arrow up so far that the horizontal window borders touched, and I was unable to get the window to enlarge again. I tried restarting, but the window remained a grey horizontal bar, and I could get the resize arrow but it would not resize if I dragged it down. Oddly, I dragged it upwards further and the window resized vertically, but off-screen, since I was already at the top of the desktop. The game seemed to run normally, but I couldn't move the window, and right-clicking on the taskbar button or ALT+space did nothing, so I couldn't use the windows commands to move or resize it. Very strange.

I'm not sure how I got it back, but I believe I managed to hit the 'load game' button or something, because a turn splash screen appeared and I got my window back under control. I've been poking around the edges, and I can shrink the window vertically, but often I can't mouse-drag the lower edge of the window back down, or just very slowly. Sometimes it works better, but it's hard to tell what's going on.

I'm not sure what is causing it, but all the while, my other windows can move, resize etc. completely normally. So I assume it's not something in my OS that is causing it.

I run Windows XP Pro sp3, on dual screens, and I've never had anything like that happen with other programs.

[MajVonRyan]

Hi, I had the same problem in windows mode with Windows 7, but I found that if I grab the top left screen edge of the game screen with the mouse, I can slowly open the window to it's full height. Re-sizing appears to ticky as it appears that there is a black screen behind the game screen and when the game sceeen is made smaller, the black screen reduces (resizes) itself to the same size as the game screen. However, when I enlarge the game (top) screen, the black screen which is not seen must be resizing itself, which must mean that I am dragging two screens. I hope this makes sense.

Top screen is the screen where the game is displayed while playing - the map. The black screen appears to look like a black border on which the map sits or is displayed eg: the small map bottom right of the game screen.

I do not normally play the game with the windows mode on as I use Alt + tab to flick to any screen I want to review. However, I do like the option of using windows mode. Great game, I am looking forward to it's release.

[ThvN]

Re-sizing appears to ticky as it appears that there is a black screen behind the game screen and when the game sceeen is made smaller, the black screen reduces (resizes) itself to the same size as the game screen. However, when I enlarge the game (top) screen, the black screen which is not seen must be resizing itself, which must mean that I am dragging two screens. I hope this makes sense.

Top screen is the screen where the game is displayed while playing - the map. The black screen appears to look like a black border on which the map sits or is displayed eg: the small map bottom right of the game screen.

Don't worry, you're making perfect sense. Yes, I notice the underlying 'shadow' screen while making the game screen smaller. BTW, I'm not sure if this is what you ment, but the mini-map seems to resize independantly, if you resize vertically it tries to alter it's aspect ratio.

On further experimentation, the resize issue with the map screen seems linked to the game scrolling or trying to scroll on the main map, if I scroll to the edges of the map first, the resizing behaves differently. The game map screen is just a bit weird, and the 'main menu' and 'load/save' screens can't be moved/resized at all it seems. I noticed the resizing only works correctly on the turn splash screen.

My Windows OS doesn't really recognize it as a real 'windowed' mode it seems, if I make it vertically to be very small and press 'Esc' the main menu displays outside the window. I don't know anything about these things, but is this really a 'windowed' mode? Because my OS seems to disagree sometimes, by not giving me the ALT-space menu to move/resize it. This last method has never failed me in the past to get 'lost' windows back, so it seemed strange to me that it didn't work.

I do not normally play the game with the windows mode on as I use Alt + tab to flick to any screen I want to review. However, I do like the option of using windows mode. Great game, I am looking forward to it's release.

I use your method as well, so it's not really an issue for me, I hadn't noticed until now because I haven't used the windowed mode for very long yet. But I decided to play a couple of games and screw around with the display to test it. It took me quite a bit of manipulation and luck(?) to get it back again, I think the behaviour is a bit strange, so I reported it.

[MajVonRyan]

The Alt + space did not work for me at all. The windows mode function might be multifunctional so the game can be ported to other platforms that use a slightly different window mode then the PC, such as the Mac and Ipad. It would make sense to write the software code to suit different hardware systems. But I could also be wrong. It is good that you reported it, you never know it maybe important.