BI Web Intelligence Rich Client Force Close Hotkey

[atul_chowdhury2]

There are enough hurdles that I face in the course of a day which restrict my ability to remain efficient or productive; from the corrupt download to the forgotten password or the rogue bluetooth device that refuses to "pair" with my laptop - there's always something waiting to surprise (or rather, annoy) me.

We welcome to this sea of hardship, the irritating and constant nag of the BI4 Web Intelligence Rich Client (WRC) System Task Tray minimization phenomena.

What is it? Well, if you've ever used SAP BI4 WRC, you will have noticed by now that, while closing the window from the "X" or "Exit" option, you'll immediately notice this in your task tray:

Because its only minimized, it continues to remain alive and healthy, in the background.  How do we know? By going to our Task Manager and observing the process associated with WRC:

Despite my fairly capable laptop, I'd rather not have WRC stay resident on my machine and consume whatever resources that it does.  (aside: MSDOS fans may remember a similar paradigm in what was known as TSR or Terminate-and-Stay-Resident programs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminate_and_Stay_Resident ).

The only option presented to the user to allow them to terminate this rapscallion of a program from their system is to expand their task tray (you can set this on Windows to keep the iconified WRC task tray icon visible), right-click on the icon, and select "Quit":

So, after a few clicks, pulls, swipes and selects, you've finally and permanently ended your WRC session.

(side note: We hope the Webi team does this on the next update to WRC > RichClientFrame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE) !! )

As a strong believer in macros, scripts, shortcuts and hot-keys, you can do what I've done and use a hot-key to instantly close/exit WRC in a single action.  Doing this makes use of the Windows Scripting Host, Windows Shortcut, Startup Folder and a Shortcut-key Configuration.

Just follow along these simple steps and soon you'll be able to regain control of your desktop.

1. Create the WebiKill.vbs script

Fire up your favorite text editor (I highly recommend: http://xhmikosr.github.com/notepad2-mod/ ) and paste the following:

Option Explicit

Dim objWMIService, objProcess, colProcess

Dim strComputer, strProcessKill

strComputer = "."

strProcessKill = "'WebIRichClient.exe'"

if (Msgbox("Quit Webi?"+vbCrLf+vbCrLf+"(Save ALL work first!)",52,"WRC Terminator") = 6) Then

Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _

& "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" _

& strComputer & "\root\cimv2")

Set colProcess = objWMIService.ExecQuery _

("Select * from Win32_Process Where Name = " & strProcessKill )

For Each objProcess in colProcess

objProcess.Terminate()

Next

End if

WScript.Quit 

2. Save this file to your "Startup" folder

Navigate to your Start Menu -> Startup Folder and Right-click -> Select "Explore" like below:

3. Create a new Shortcut in the same folder

- Right-click in the folder in the white area (don't select anything) and you will see a context-menu appear

- Select "New Shortcut" and define it as follows:

4. Right-click on the newly created shortcut and select "Properties"

- Enter the "Shortcut Key" field (default it "none") and press Ctrl-Alt-W.  This sequence will be the new sequence to instantly quit WRC.

5. Click "Apply" and "Ok"

To test this, launch Web Intelligence Rich Client and once you're fully ready to quit press CTRL-ALT-W. 

Now, you get a small confirmation dialog that truly exits WRC without the fuss of task tray antics.

Important!!: In order for the hotkey to work you must leave the shortcut in the "Startup" folder, regardless of where you keep the ".vbs" file.

Related Links including script download:

Script: http://www.infolytik.com/extmedia/WebiKill.zip

Notepad2: http://xhmikosr.github.com/notepad2-mod

Enjoy!

Atul Chowdhury