An update on this trouble ticket suggesting the above improvement to PD14. I received a response from support telling me all the information I needed to send them in order to diagnose this problem, including a bunch of files to create such as from dxdiag, re-install everything, etc., etc. Their typical boilerplate response for any trouble ticket.

I responded with the following:
"I am not asking you to make a diagnosis. I am asking you pass this suggested improvement on to software planning."

I then received another boilerplate response asking for everything -- including the kitchen sink.
"Dear Roy , Thank you for writing back. In regards to your concern, To asist you further we need some information, So please help to collect us the below information:"

Even though I have owned PD versions 7-14, and have used it for years, for about the Nth time I'm looking for a replacement for PowerDirector. A couple years back I submitted about 2 dozen requests for usability/productivity improvements -- all of which were ignored. I'm now testing Corel VideoStudio 9.5. Seems to be just as fast (faster during editing), the same major features most video editors want, and lacks the usability negatives in PD, resulting in about a 3X improvement in productivity. Previously known as PDuser97031 (had to create a new user after changing email address)

I'm intrigued. What is it that you are doing that locks user input out? It's not something that I have ever experienced. Rendering is about the longest process I can think of and the progress feedback in that section is very good I find. I can see exactly where the process has got to.

The easy way for suggestions to Cyberlink is to post on the Suggestions for PDR 15.

http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/45634.page

You can also contact Cyberlink support:

http://www.cyberlink.com/support/index.html

Technical Support: Tech Support may be the best way.

https://membership.cyberlink.com/support/service/technical-support.do

A PM to our Moderator Dafydd B may get a quicker response. Dafydd has direct contact with the people at Cyberlink. Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

Quote: The easy way for suggestions to Cyberlink is to post on the Suggestions for PDR 15.

Tried that on the PD14 suggestions thread. Over 20 usability/productivity improvements were ignored. Did not appear in PD15. Previously known as PDuser97031 (had to create a new user after changing email address)

Quote: What is it that you are doing that locks user input out?

Pretty much everything in edit mode. Make a change, then sit arms crossed for minutes until can do next thing. PD is "working" but cursor is not clock. If you are not working with 30+ minute clips you won't see the problem.

Have a state of the art gaming computer, so insufficient hardware is not the problem. Previously known as PDuser97031 (had to create a new user after changing email address)

No I don't do complex processing of single large files and as I say, I haven't come across your problem.

From my very limited development experience I would imagine that it would be a pretty simple thing to do to change the cursor state. I imagine that PD is programmed in a modular way and who knows, it might already be in there somewhere but just not being called. It still requires developers time though and I suppose it boils down to demand in the end.

I was a software developer also. They are already locking out keyboard input while the software is working, and then allowing input when processing is complete. All the have to do is ad clock_on and clock-off at that point. I suspect the software actions are broken into different teams, and nobody in any team has bothereed to worry about notifying the user that "working" is in progress.

The other frustrating thing is that I submitted it directly to cyberlink support as a suggestion ticket, but the guy in India can't get that through his head and keeps asking me for "core dumps".

)o: Previously known as PDuser97031 (had to create a new user after changing email address)

Cyberlink is a Taiwanese company, not Indian. )0: Regards,
Dan
Power Director 21-Ultimate
v 21.0.3111.0
XPS-8940, Win-10 64-bit,
Intel Core i9-10900 processor
(10 core, 20M Cache),
32GB DDR4 RAM, 2TB M.2 PCIe NVME SSD, 2TB 7200 RPM SATA HDD,
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER 8GB GDDR6

Quote: I was a software developer also. They are already locking out keyboard input while the software is working, and then allowing input when processing is complete. All the have to do is ad clock_on and clock-off at that point. I suspect the software actions are broken into different teams, and nobody in any team has bothereed to worry about notifying the user that "working" is in progress.
)o:

The cursor clock or wait state is something I remember from dos. I have never seen it in running windows applications. I remember seeing that from running dos apps in a window on win 3.1.

See this link: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21577562/cursor-clock-and-thread-priority and this one: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/192900/wait-cursor-over-entire-html-page . I do see this problem with poorly written software where the browser is locked up due to a long running script. It should not happen in a work environment where a computer is multitasking. No company can afford to have a computer locked up for a cursor clock for any length of time.

Now I come to think about it, it's an awfully long time since I've seen an 'egg-timer'. At the end of the day the only thing you can do is make the suggestion and then hope