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RadForm and Remote Desktop (RDP)

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renemt asked on 03 Feb 2009, 10:26 AM

I'm using RadControls for WinForms 2008.3 1321.

I built an application, using a RadForm as main form. If I run it on a local computer everything looks good. But if I connect a remote computer via terminal services (remote desktop / RDP protocoll) which is running a "XP based" operating system (e.g. Windows XP oder Windows Server 2003) there is an issue:

The caption bar of the RadForm won't get drawn correctly. It is invisible, most time completely, sometimes just the left part (the one with the image). But it is there, obviously: if I click on the right place of the "invisible" caption bar I'm able to drag, minimize or close the window although I don't see the system menu buttons nor the whole bar itself. If I move the window outside the visible bounds of the screen and back to screen again the caption bar gets drawn correctly, with all images, titles, buttons and so on. But if I minimize/restore the window after this the drawing problems appear again.

As I said above the issue seems to occure only on XP based remote systems. On computers running a Vista derivative (like any Vista version or Windows Server 2008) the whole window gets drawn correctly. The problem is also independent from the RDP client. It occures the same if I use a XP station or a Vista station as client, which both have different RDP client versions. The RDP connection settings (as color depht oder performance settings) are also unimportant. Furthermore, only the caption bar of the form is affected but none of its contents (and I use a lot of RadControls in it), including main menu or status bar.

Can anybody confirm similar issues - and has a solution maybe?

Regards,
ReneMT

10 Answers, 1 is accepted

answered on 24 Mar 2009, 08:17 PM

Renemt,

I can confirm the same problem -- or more procisely, you're confirming mine... I posted this the day before (March 19) here: http://www.telerik.com/community/forums/winforms/forms-and-dialogs/title-bar-not-displaying.aspx but have not yet received a response.

I experience this issue with or WITHOUT RDP. It happens locally on both XP and on Vista. It appears to be caused by the entire title bar needing to be redrawn (like clicking on a larger window behind the RadForm), which hides the RadForm (or just the title bar or part of the title bar). Then if you switch back to the RadForm, the title bar does not redraw. If I move it partially off-screen and back, it draws that part.

If I move another window over it and then move that window back off of it, the RadForm redraws correctly, but if I click on the partially obscured radform, it will NOT redraw it's titlebar.

Again, this is locally, WITHOUT RDP. It also happens WITH RDP. It happens in every scenario I've tried.

answered on 25 Mar 2009, 07:59 AM

Hi all,

I just want to tell you that I "downgraded" my application to an ordinary WinForms form. Beside the redrawing problems which several of you can confirm there was a clear performance issue at least when running on Vista. The whole application was somehow slow. For example, if I was clicking on a menu item it lasts about 500msec until reaction. After reverting to the WinForm the GUI performance considerably improved.

How pretty and stylish the RadForm ever is - until these problems are solved I won't use it anymore - finally I have to delivery value to the customer and I think he won't be so happy if I say "Look, there are some annoying issues - but doesn't it look pretty cool?" :-)

Regards,
ReneMT

answered on 30 Mar 2009, 03:54 PM

Hello ReneMT,

We are sorry to hear you had to downgrade, but your point is strong. If the issues related to RadForm are unacceptable for you application, you should better wait until we confirm we have managed to resolve them.

We have already suggested you to try ShapedForm and RadTitleBar instead of RadForm, which would resolve the redrawing issues. Did you try this approach? Please let us know if you have any feedback on this scenario.

As it comes to the performance issues, we will be very to glad if you can elaborate a bit more, on the exact problems you have noticed. This will help us to further optimize our tools.

Generally, the flexibility and the unique visual appearance of our controls are based on an especially designed UI architecture which enables our customers to apply a wide range of customizations when using our product. This architecture performs different initializations, such as property registrations, image processing and themes loading which, of course, leads to some performance penalties, but does not affect the overall user experience. This additional logic is not supported by the Standard Windows Forms Controls and thus they do not provide such great extensibility options. Moreover, the Standard Windows Forms Controls are Win32 controls and they are initially loaded when the Operating System starts. Thus, their performance is favored by the Operating System, which is not the case with RadControls for WinForms. I want to assure you that we have always tried to avoid this tradeoff of performance penalties versus visuals and expanded capabilities.

As you already know, we have all the issues in our todo list and your report is valuable to us since this helps for better issue priority management. We have already resolved some of the issues related to RadForm, as it comes to MDI environment in Q1. However, other issues are more difficult to resolve and require thorough code changes and tests.

Sincerely yours,

Mike
the Telerik team

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