| Fixing my 1x1.gif problem. |
tilps
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 6720
Best Total: 18m 37s | Posted - 2007.01.14 10:59:41
1x1.gif continues to annoy me, causing me to click save regularly, wasting a lot of time when I forget to save. I was half way done through this Sunday's puzzle when it hit me in its latest attempt to ensure I never break into club 39.
I have tried using internet explorer instead of firefox in the past, but I can't get the right click menus suppressed for some reason or another, and I am a right click addict.
So I finally decided to do something about it. I wrote a program to automate internet explorer based on a custom version of my LoopDeLoop program. Custom meaning absolutely no traces of solving code left behind, and the undo system replaced with an exact replica of fix position.
So its almost identical in every way to using the web page, just with no chance of 1x1.gif crashes ruining my day.
But I ask myself, is it okay to use this program? Regardless of the fact that it gives me no measurable advantage over someone with a working browser? (In fact, because it can't load the UI until the web page is finished loading, and internet explorer appears to be slower than firefox at loading the page, I am definitely a few seconds worse off - not that it matters since I can't click as fast as the fastest players anyway.)
So I ask the rest of you, (foilman especially), should I use this program? ( I haven't used it for anything other than archives yet since I wrote it today.) Secondly, if it is okay for me to use this program, should I make it available to everyone else?
(PS: if one would want to make it harder for people to write a program like mine, having names of functions and elements change randomly would certainly make life fun.)
Last edited by tilps - 2007.01.14 11:21:22 |
foilman
Kwon-Tom Admin
Puzzles: 3614
Best Total: 24m 6s | Posted - 2007.01.15 10:25:43
The problem with using a program like that is there's nothing to stop someone writing a solver and replacing the program with that and then sitting back and watching their name appear in all the leaderboards... in fact I've seen it happen once or twice already. Ideally I'd like to improve the puzzle code on the site so these gif problems don't occur in the first place, so if you have any ideas on that, let me know!!
Last edited by foilman - 2007.01.15 10:26:17 |
tilps
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 6720
Best Total: 18m 37s | Posted - 2007.01.15 11:02:10
Yeap, I could have indeed written a solver, in less time then it took to write this one, since I wouldn't have had to remove all the solving code.
It wouldn't be as fun though!
The program isn't pluggable though so someone wouldn't be replacing my program, they would have to somehow automate it from their solver. It would probably be easier for them to just write their own interface to a self hosted instance of IE's mshtml activex component - I've never used it before and it took me less than a couple of hours to do.
But onto other matters.
Having actually had to grok the javascript generated by the puzzle page in order to write the program, I can safely say I am none the wiser as to why the 1x1.gif problem occurs. Especially since it doesn't occur on my wife's computer ever, even though she uses the same version of firefox. (not quite the same plugins, but I never did have any luck with fixing the problem by removing plugins.) The mouse up/down hack looks a little suspicious, but I don't think it could cause it. It looks like you are trying to handle lack of mousedown events, but it would appear that if there was no mouse down events, only every second mouse up event would be processed. Is there some browser out there which generates mouse up for both down and up?
anyway, that's my two cents. Maybe I should log it as a bug in mozilla's bugzilla database, see if they have any suggestions.
Last edited by tilps - 2007.01.15 11:07:27 |
foilman
Kwon-Tom Admin
Puzzles: 3614
Best Total: 24m 6s | Posted - 2007.01.15 11:14:25
Hehe, the mouse-up, mouse-down, click event handling is a nightmare, if you're trying to catch double-clicks and handle them as normal clicks.
When double-clicking the events fired go like this I think:-
# Explorer: mousedown mouseup click mouseup dblclick
# Firefox: mousedown mouseup click mousedown mouseup click dblclick
so sometimes on explorer the mousedown doesn't happen before a mouseup! |
tilps
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 6720
Best Total: 18m 37s | Posted - 2007.01.15 11:48:26
Ahh, I see - very evil! and after the double click, the next mouse down will go through on ie and it will go back to mouse ups being ignored until the next double click. But that click pattern is a very microsoft thing to do for 'making double click recognizable'. |
Gadget1903
Kwon-Tom Addict
Puzzles: 325
Best Total: 23m 39s | Posted - 2007.01.23 22:30:40
I use Firefox and it used to happen to me regularly. What I use to get around the problem is to use an extension called "IE Tab".
IE Tab allows firefox uses internet explorer and display the webpage within a firefox window. The window behaves like it's Internet Explorer with firefox menus (you can't generally use firefox shortcut keys and right click shows IE functions) I have used it with IE6/IE7 and windows XP. I did try to use it on windows NT, but it didn't work. |
Tilps
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 6720
Best Total: 18m 37s | Posted - 2007.01.24 06:29:56
Yeap, that embbeds the IE control into a page (just like my app does). I am pretty sure I still have my issue with right click showing drop down menu in that case. |
procrastinator
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 1083
Best Total: 12m 56s | Posted - 2007.01.24 06:37:18
Quote: Originally Posted by foilman
When double-clicking the events fired go like this I think:-
# Explorer: mousedown mouseup click mouseup dblclick
# Firefox: mousedown mouseup click mousedown mouseup click dblclick
|
You've probably already answered this somewhere, but what happens if you just ignore the ups and downs and use the clicks and dblclicks? |
foilman
Kwon-Tom Admin
Puzzles: 3614
Best Total: 24m 6s | Posted - 2007.01.24 08:49:12
Because firefox fires both click and dblclick at the same time, so two things would happen!! |
procrastinator
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 1083
Best Total: 12m 56s | Posted - 2007.01.24 11:27:20
Quote: Originally Posted by foilman Because firefox fires both click and dblclick at the same time, so two things would happen!! |
I mean treat a click followed by a dblclick as a single click. Oh wait, then single-clicks could not be acted on until the next time you clicked... I've seen applets that do that to me!
So you could fire on clicks and dblclicks-immediately-following-mouseups. Or you could just fire on mouseups. But not knowing how firefox drag-n-drop works, either or both could have bad side-effects. |
Gadget1903
Kwon-Tom Addict
Puzzles: 325
Best Total: 23m 39s | Posted - 2007.01.26 00:22:18
The "Adblock" extension definitely causes the 1x1.gif problem on my computer.
I uninstalled Adblock and installed "Adblock Plus", it does almost the same thing...but no 1x1.gif problem (for me).
I made sure that I restarted firefox after uninstalling Adblock. I tried to duplicate the 1x1.gif problem, but it wouldn't occur.
And I also restarted after installing Adblock Plus and 1x1.gif stayed away.
I suppose it's possible that other extensions may cause the 1x1.gif problem too...but Adblock was one extension Tilps and I had in common. |
Tilps
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 6720
Best Total: 18m 37s | Posted - 2007.01.26 00:27:28
hmm, guess I must not have restarted cleanly enough - when I removed my plugins last time. Will try again. I would have beaten my personal record today if it wasn't for the 1x1.gif problem. (only missed out by 11 seconds - I got it 8 clicks in, and paranoia made me save half way through.) |
Brian
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 4907
Best Total: 9m 6s | Posted - 2007.01.26 00:59:24
Quote: Originally Posted by gadget1903 The "Adblock" extension definitely causes the 1x1.gif problem on my computer.
I uninstalled Adblock and installed "Adblock Plus", it does almost the same thing...but no 1x1.gif problem (for me). |
Not sure if this helps or not, but I use Firefox with Adblock Plus (on XP) and have never had a problem. |
Tilps
Kwon-Tom Obsessive
Puzzles: 6720
Best Total: 18m 37s | Posted - 2007.01.26 01:21:40
hrmm 6 archive puzzles with no 1x1.gif - adblock plus could be a winner. |
djpohly
Kwon-Tom Addict
Puzzles: 390
Best Total: 25m 1s | Posted - 2007.02.13 02:33:12
My $0.02:
I've long thought this was some incompatibility with Firefox 1.5/2 that had been resolved in the latest nightly "Minefield" build, and would be out with Firefox 3 in time.
Now I realize that my Firefox has Adblock installed, whereas Minefield has ABP... which jives with what's been postulated here.
Of course, all attempts to actually reproduce 1x1.gif in an effort to prove this proposition have been futile. :-\ Thank you, Murphy. |
