My first suggestion would be to temporarily change your multi-monitor configuration while the dialog box is open, such as by unplugging one of your monitors, in an attempt to force SAI to put it somewhere you can see it.

I don't have SAI, but if its dialog boxes are anything like Photoshop's, you can do either Alt+Spacebar or Ctrl+Spacebar, press 'M', and then use the keyboard's arrow keys to move the dialog box around even if your mouse can't reach it. It may also start following your mouse cursor as soon as you move it. I'd recommend having your tablet unplugged while doing this, because I'm not sure if it will also act like a mouse at the same time.

Unfortunately, SAI doesn't have that ability, as that was an early on attempted fix. Weirdly instead that key combo is assigned to changing the angle of the image, but there is no way to turn that combo off. Thank you though.

found this in their site but i dunno what version you have:

SAI Ver.1 does not support high DPI monitors, and Windows 10 does not apply DPI scaling for SAI Ver.1. If you use SAI Ver.1 with a high DPI monitor, you have to change the screen resolution less than about 1920x1200. Try using different resolution maybe?

Read that as well, unfortunately that trick did not work either.

I wonder if the dialog box is 'lost' on the currently deactivated third monitor? Who knows. I have the new card, will install this weekend (and hopefully not fuck that up), and see if any good happens then when having a third monitor back. If not, I guess it is time to switch to Studio Paint Clip, which isn't a big deal to buy, but somehow I need to figure out to get the nice brushes similar to the ones in Sai that I use.

yeah you were having video problems before, hopefully this new card will fix things.
i dunno how you can fuck up installing a video card. :P i can pretty much walk anyone through it on the telephone.

It isn't that I don't technically know what I am doing, I just have very low self-esteem and Murphy's Law resignation.

i have anti-Murpheys law.
Whatever awesome things can happen can. :D

Right click in the top blue bar of the window, where it says SAI and then the file name. There should be an option to reset all positions. That should clear it up.

i thought that too, that there might be a "reset" option in there. only problem is, if he resets, wont that lose any enhancements, additions or brushes or whatever?

No, it only resets the positions of the windows. here. Painttool sai V1 was written by a man named Koji, single handedly, and is was developed outside of the normal 'framework' that windows users expect. Which is a nice way of saying they aren't a UI designer! Lots of stuff doesnt make sense.

lol
Good point.
Took me a while to be "won over" Windows 10, im very stubborn when it comes to technology. =P especially updates.

I have yet to be convinced Windows 10 has anything I really want or need. All of my systems are still on Win7. :)

FIGHT THE POWER! :D

lol

Actually i was hard=pressed to lose my XP...i say here and now, Windows XP was THE most stable system we ever had

Actually, I do have one PC which is still on Windows XP. It's a special-purpose setup, though, specifically to support some older devices which there aren't any Win-7 drivers for.

sometimes i just wanna go back to Apple Macintosh. :D

I was happy, i played games, i could hack computer systems, i could learn Hypercards (which eventually became the Web) ...

Life was great in 1988.

The only real reason I stopped using XP was because I couldn't update Firefox beyond version 47, and any higher versions require at least windows 7. And I needed to use a newer version because so many websites have converted to HTML5 that only basic websites continued to work with it. I've found windows 7 to be crashy and harder to use, and from experience with windows 10 at work I really hate that one. I'd still be using XP if I could.

yeah when software and drivers started having problems, especially the new video cards and sound cards and USBs... we were kinda forced to use Windows 7...and then we were forced into Windows 10.
i begin to see what those LINUX guys mean about having control over your computer the way you want :D

Funny thing is, in order to get SAI to run, I have to set it to Windows Vista SP 2 compatibility mode, lol.

ROTFL

ah good old Paint SAI...
i remember why i hated working with it now. :D

That worked!!!

After hours and hours of trying *everything* your simple solution worked! Oh thank you very much!

No problem! When you get a moment, check what version of SAI you're running and let me know. I can work with you and help you get on to the newest version which has a great many improvements.

aw way to go, Mom!
thanks for fixing that for him. :D

Doesn't state the exact version but it is SAI 1.x.

Click Others -> Version Info

Has some weird text: SFL Violater Site:issfl.cn

Ah, you're running an oooold pirated version. If you want help getting on current, let me know (can hit me up on discord at BadVoices#8757 or Note) Or dont, if ya dont want to, lol.

It was a gift, I guess I never thought about it, but yeah I wouldn't mind moving to Sai 2, as long as I can keep the exact brushes I made over time, they are pretty essential.

Well, you can bump up to a newer sai 1 at least. When you're motivated and find time, let me know, and i'll give ya a hand with that.

You should be able to move custom brushes.

One of the improvements should fix the bug with the program refusing to save or open images if the first image loaded in the program belongs to a specific file type. I believe it also fixes the "access violation" errors for loading thumbnails for certain image types (the previous workaround was to turn off thumbnails in its file explorer thing).

So on the off chance of it being a multi monitor setup, and the box getting thrown to a screen that's not active. As long as the dialog box is the current selected window. Try holding Windows key+Shift and use the left and right arrow keys. That's how you can quickly move apps between monitors.

That wont work on SAI since SAI V1s windows, menus, and dialog boxes arent using the win32 api. The developer eventually added a position reset tool because of that, lol.

Ah, did not know that. Learned something new today.

I hate to be the physician who, after carefully reviewing the particulars of your case, recommends suicide...

If the software worked before it suddenly didn't, I would recommend a complete uninstall and reinstall. This is a Hiroshima solution, I know, but you're wasting a lot of time and trying different things and getting nowhere.

One thing you need to do is make sure you delete all the corrupted little .ini files and the other profile records which will gleefully maintain themselves with a fresh install of the program. Or rather, the fresh install will ignore them instead of overlaying them with clean data.

When I uninstall a program, I routinely use a product called VS Revo Uninstaller. No, I don't have any financial interest in the company or their products, but I will recommend a good tool when I find one. Once you have Revo installed and up and running (it's actually small and relatively fast) press F1 for comprehensive instructions and help.

But what do I know? I only have a Bachelors degree in Computer Science and 30+ years of experience in the field.

Turned out someone had a simple solution that eluded me for hours on end, a hidden menu. I did try your solution though beforehand, sadly lost a lot of settings as everything was wiped, but not the dialog box setting, no doubt there was some sneaky file *somewhere* for that.

Thank for the help though!

"But what do I know? I only have a Bachelors degree in Computer Science and 30+ years of experience in the field. "

Oh man, don't say it like that, I write this posts because I know furries are literally the best technical and computer support on the planet!

Oh man, don't say it like that, I write this posts because I know furries are literally the best technical and computer support on the planet!Not about you, here, but more likely some of your followers. Too many times I've been challenged by 'X-spurts' who have been messing up computers since 2019 or whatever.


_{(* remember, X is an unknown quantity and a spurt is a drip under pressure *)}

Part of the problem is that window and dialog positions are tracked of by Windows itself, not just by the application. If Windows "knows" that a given app or window was on monitor X when it was last closed, it may try to re-spawn it on that same monitor. -- and if that monitor no longer exists because one of the displays has been unplugged or moved, it gets confused about where to respawn the window, or will try to re-spawn it to "negative" coordinates that put it outside the visible area of the current monitor. So sometimes, even uninstalling and reinstalling doesn't fix the window positions, because the "stale" window-position data is stashed somewhere else in the catacombs of the Windows registry or "user/appdata" folders, and the reinstalled version of the program just re-inherits the same window positions.

This kind of wonkyness seems to be particularly troublesome on triple-monitor setups, too. My guess is that they probably don't test this stuff very extensively on anything beyond single- and dual-monitor configurations. (Windows also seems to get confused about layouts if you start off with a dual monitor system with the monitors oriented side-by-side, then try to change the layout later so that they're stacked vertically. I had all kinds of weird issues with entire applications opening "invisibly" because they were still using coordinates that were, technically, putting them to the "left" of my primary monitor even thugh the 2nd monitor was now "above" it.)