Window always on top?

General Discussion Other

colouredm..

in General Discussion • Other • 1 month ago

Hi,

I recently got my hands on a LeapMotion controller and I'm trying to create an application to send data from the Leap to other programs using OSC signals. To my delight there are a few great libraries available that make this an easy task. However, I encountered one annoying problem: as soon as the window is deactivated (by clicking inside another program), no more information is being retrieved from the Leap. Is there a way to have the application window always on top? I tried all resources I could find, but I'm fairly new to Processing and I'm overwhelmed by all resources available, so I hope the answer isn't somewhere right under my nose...
I found to use the function PApplet.requestFocus() somewhere in another thread, but this gives the error "Cannot make a static reference to the non-static method requestFocus() from the type Component". No clue what that means...
Maybe having the window on top isn't the right answer at all, but it seems like the easiest solution so far.

I'm using the OscP5 and LeapMotionP5 libraries, if it helps.

Thanks!

-CMB

Replies(3)

calsign

Re: Window always on top?

1 month ago

To call the method above, simply call requestFocus(), no need to add PApplet before it.

<technical rant>

PApplet is the superclass for your Processing sketch. This means that when you want to access one of its functions, you need only call the function and not prefix it with PApplet. In fact, be referring to PApplet itself and not the instance of PApplet (your sketch), you are attempting to invoke a static (exists only once for the class, not per-instance) method of PApplet called requestFocus() that doesn't exist. Static methods have there place, and that isn't here...

</technical rant>

I'm not sure if that will get you where you want to be or not, and I am at a loss for any help for the rest of the problem...

colouredm..

Re: Window always on top?

1 month ago

Thanks! That was indeed the solution. I vaguely remember something about static methods and classes from Java classes, but I guess it's about time i revisit that...

I'm sure more questions will follow, but for now on I can proceed for a while :)
Thanks again for the fast answer.

colouredm..

Re: Window always on top?

1 month ago

Actually, this is not a solution at all. The window goes to the background (though it tries to stay on top) after all. I can force it to stay on top with frame.toFront(), but then I can't use any other program, as the window will force itself to stay active. I don't want the window to be on top anyway, I just want the data to get sent through continuously. Cheap tricks never work for long...

Does anyone know of a way to keep Processing active even when the window is not active? Is this kind of behaviour determined by the library itself?

I guess the best thing I can do is open another thread in the Library development subforum...

Edit: for future reference: https://forum.processing.org/topic/leapmotionp5-not-working-when-window-is-not-active#25080000002644017

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