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Minimizing Cygwin/XFree86 under NT 4.0 with KDE auto-hide task bar active consumes CPU resources


Please forgive any ignorance of mine demonstrated by this note.  Also please
forgive the length of the message. :-)

We downloaded the newest Cygwin/XFree86 on Jul 7th.  I don't know how what
file to look at in the unpack directory to verify what version we are
running, but I believe it is 1.3.12-1.

I am using KDE (according to the KDE Control Center GUI, it is KDE version
1.1.2) and I had the task bar set to the top and to "Auto Hide" with the
smallest delay, fastest speed, and the Animate set fairly low (about 5 ticks
up).

The Cygwin/XFree86 window is the only X item on my Windows task bar and it
takes the whole screen when present.  The Alt/Space does not drop down the
System menu (from the Cygwin/XFree86 system icon on the left side of the
title bar, so I move the mouse up to the minimize button (icon) on the right
side of the title bar.  

As the mouse moves over the area assigned to the KDE task bar, it pops up
(as it should) and the NT Task Manager CPU load jumps up to float around
40-60% for the XWin.exe.  Then, the KDE task bar stays up while the mouse is
over the Cygwin/XFree86 title bar.  When I push the minimize button, the CPU
load stays the same.

This is true even when some other Windows program currently has the focus
(e.g. Launch Mozilla then Cygwin/XFree86.  Alt/Tab from Cygwin/XFree86 to
Mozilla.  The KDE task bar can be activated by simply moving the mouse over
that area even though Cygwin/XFree86 does not have the active focus.  

Now position the Mozilla (or other Windows program) partly over the
Cygwin/XFree86 title bar.  With the KDE auto-hide task bar NOT active, there
is a path to the Cygwin/XFree86 title bar that does NOT activate the KCD
task bar.  When minimized like this, the CPU load is NOT increased.

My belief is that the interaction between the KDE auto-hide bar and
Cygwin/XFree86 requires that the mouse messages be monitored by the KDE.  So
I presume the socket for the X messages must then be getting used by KDE
asking "Has the mouse moved away from the active bar area?".  It seems to me
that it has but that Cygwin/XFree86 can not determine this.  

I know very little about X messages.  Is there something that can be done
about this besides move the task bar to the bottom bar and/or make it not
auto-hide?  

Also, is there some way to make the Alt/Space combination activate the
Cygwin/XFree86 Windows system menu?

Thank you,

Steve Stone



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