Re: (forte-users) catching user inactivity and loggingoff

Question

My group is also has been requested to perform a similar task. We probably will not log the user out, but instead will throw up our Login window if the app has been idle for 15 minutes. The trick is figuring out how to determine "what is an activity?". We have a main menu window that fires off most other windows (usually with start task). So, we need to monitor usage for anything in that main menu or any task started from it. Would dragging a window be considered activity? Moving the mouse over a window, but not clicking?
Steven Barnes
"Fingerhut, Eric" <Eric.Fingerhuthbo.com> 07/21/00 08:24AM >>>Were looking to automatically log a user off that hasn't been 'active' on
the system after some defined period of time (i.e., 15 minutes).
We're also looking to implement a variation of the Window Manager pattern,
and wondering if there's something in the pattern itself that would be
useful for accomplishing the auto log-off (perhaps a window level event that
means a user has done something, that we'd otherwise not be using).
I appreciate any and all feedback to accomplish this.
TIA,
Eric

Answer 1

Eric,
We're looking to automatically log a user off that hasn't been 'active'on
the system after some defined period of time (i.e., 15 minutes).
We're also looking to implement a variation of the Window Managerpattern,
and wondering if there's something in the pattern itself that would be
useful for accomplishing the auto log-off (perhaps a window level eventthat
means a user has done something, that we'd otherwise not be using).<snip!>
If you're using a window manager, your windows are probably (hopefully!)
all subclasses of the same superwindow. At least, they are for us.
We're not logging people off, but we are doing things like lighting up a
"save" button when the user has changed the window. For this we register
events on self.Window.ChildAfterValueChange and
self.Window.ChildAfterFirstKeystroke. You might also want an event on
ChildClick. My bias is to ignore mouse movement events, since they might
easily have nothing to do with your application (e.g. moving the mouse
across your application's window to get from the Minesweeper window to the
Solitare window).
If you're using these events, you can write an event handler for your
superclass window that fields the events you want, does anything it needs
to do with them, then calls a method that does nothing. The subclass window
can override this method to get the functionality it needs.
Tom Wyant