I'm sure others have run into this problem too...
I often watch videos in a small VLC window while working on other tasks, but no matter where the window is placed, I eventually need to access something in the GUI behind it, and have to manually reposition the video window first.
This could be solved by having the VLC window snap to another corner whenever the mouse pointer is moved over it. I haven't found an app that does this, so would like to write one. What technologies could I use to do this? Cross platform might be harder... so what if just on Windows?
I'd prefer something in C# (or Python), but am willing to learn something new if need be.
Here is a windows only solution. You dont need to actually put the mouse over the window. All you need to do is Find the window using its name and send WM_MOVE. I dont know the name of the window which VLC uses. You could use Spy++ to find its name.
This is a bit OOT, but in Windows 7, shaking the active window will hide others to reveal the desktop (and so will clicking/hovering the rightmost taskbar button). Instead of hiding/moving vlc, you could just temporarily reveal the whole desktop. Shaking the active window again brings everything back.
Related
I am writing a small application to automatically rotate through open windows on Windows 7/8.1/10 PC's. I have written the majority of the code and it is working well except I cannot figure out or find out what key presses to use to cycle through open applications.
I have tried SendKeys.Send("%{Tab 2}"); but this seems to only actually press the TAB button once as it keeps switching between the same two windows (even though more are open).
I have tried SendKeys.Send("%+{Esc}"); but this doesn't maximize windows that are minimized to the taskbar. It will effectively cycle through each open windows and bring them into focus (as evident by watching the white semi-transparent overlay on the taskbar item) but it won't show them on screen - I'm assuming because they started minimized. Only the maximized ones will show on screen when it's their turn.
Can anyone please assist? I'm sure it's a simple fix of maximizing the window it cycles to but I'm unsure how to implement this.
I haven't included the code of the entire application as I don't think it is relevant. If you do require it please let me know and I will add it.
Many thanks.
I've been googling a lot for this one and I can't seem to find anything. Maybe it's the way that I'm wording it. So basically what I'm looking to do in C# using Windows Forms, is create a form and have it essentially take the shape of the taskbar and do the same functions as the taskbar, but it will sit above the task bar or at the top of the screen.
It can't be "ON TOP" (I'm not trying to block user buttons like the close button of a program they are using).
Autohide would be a plus.
This is the main thing I'm after:
It needs to act just like the task bar. When you maximize any other window, the taskbar does not go over the top of the window, even though it is set to "on top".
You'll want to use an Appbar to do this:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc144177.aspx
For more information, check out here and here and here.
If you don't want to deal with C++ and Native Code (as #FKunecke correctly proposed) then you'll not find anything predefined for this. What you can do is create a form for your bar and make the visualization calculations by hand, then you can set the screen location of it. That's all. Not forcing the bar form to stay on top will not hide the other app forms so you'll get that for free.
Now, to fully implement what you want there are some problems you need to deal with, such as Taskbar location and height. Then you'll need to use some native code tricks.
I need to write a program that forces Google Chrome to be in the front and disable all other actions like opening another program etc... I just need to have Google Chrome in front of the screen and that's all. I can't allow other programs to pop up.
Any ideas how it can be done?
Thank you!
Im pretty sure as far as you can get is a popup window that has no scrollbar or top bar, and can't be resized, but JS wont let you manipulate stuff outside the current window, just like you cant auto-click links inside an iframe
I highly doubt this is possible in Windows, and if it is it won't be ethical if used on home PCs. Will this be a kiosk style app?
You can control what appears in the browser to some extent, such as scrollbar-less windows but much more than that is impossible.
Definitely not ethical at all but applications such as Fortress 101 can do this. I have done similar things in the past using C and the Win32 API. I won't write the code for you but I basically did the following:
Find the desktop and hide it
Find and hide the taskbar
Find and destroy the start button
Capture special keypresses and prevent them from working as expected
You would also need to poll a process list because even doing all of that doesn't prevent the user from downloading a file and executing it. Thus if you found a new application in the process list, you could destroy it.
You could do this using user32.dll with C# but such an application would better be left to commercial software packages.
When I set focus on a text box, on a forms load event in Windows Mobile 5.0, the Windows tool bar appears even though my form is maximized.
When I do not set the focus on the text box the form opens maximized. I do not want the windows tool bar appearing.
How do I prevent this from happening?
TThe start bar in WinMo is actually not part of your app - it is a separate process managed by the Shell and it really wants to always be on top. Trying to get your app above it goes against the design goals of WinMo (though it's a common thing to want to do).
I'd recommend doing some searching and reading on "kiosk mode" to garner what knowledge you can from others who have been down this road, but what you're seeing is that the StartBar is getting set topmost.
Raffaelle Limosani has a pretty decent blog entry that covers kiosk mode, so it's a good place to start (take a look at the other blogs he links to as well).
The toolbar at the top is actually a separate window, and it has a habit of appearing when not wanted over top of a full-screen ("kiosk" mode) app. For example, if you ShowDialog a second full-screen window from the first, the Start window flickers up for a split second before going away.
The only way I ever found of dealing with it was to hack into the API and actually make the Start window hidden while my application was open. This is a big potential problem, because if your app crashes without making the Start window visible again, it will stay invisible until you reset the device (or run you app again successfully).
I'd advice against doing this unless you absolutely have to. As ctacke points out, this would be an example of an app not playing nicely with Windows Mobile.
Assume i have an empty form 100px by 100px at 0,0 coordinates on the screen. It has no border style. Is there any way to have this positioned BEHIND the desktop icons?
I would assume this would involve the process Progman because thats what contains the desktop icons. But no matter what i try... getting window handles and changing parents etc, i cant seem to get the window to appear behind the icons.
Any ideas?
Essentially you want to draw on the desktop wallpaper. The desktop hierarchy looks like this:
"Program Manager" Progman
"" SHELLDLL_DefView
"FolderView" SysListView32
It's the SysListView32 that actually draws the desktop icons, so that's what you have to hook. And you can't just stick your form on top of it; you have to grab a WindowDC to that handle and draw on the DC.
It can be done - it has been done, but you're going to be using a lot of interop. Forget about doing this with a traditional Winforms Form. I don't think I've even seen it done in C#, although somebody did it in python, if that helps. I'm not a python coder myself, but the code is pretty short and easy to understand.
There is a solution to this problem, at least for Windows 8. I postet it in form of an article on CodeProject, so you can read about it here:
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/856020/Draw-behind-Desktop-Icons-in-Windows
This works for simple drawing, windows forms, wpf, directx, etc. The solution presented in that article is only for Windows 8.
Google-fu led me to this MSDN forum question:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/winformsdesigner/thread/c61d0705-d9ec-436a-b0a6-6ffa0ecec0cc
And this is a blog post regard the major pitfalls with using GetDesktopWindow() or dealing with the desktop handle (as per your other question: C# Position Window On Desktop)
http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2004/02/24/79212.aspx
You also don't want to pass GetDesktopWindow() as your hwndParent. If you create a child window whose parent is GetDesktopWindow(), your window is now glued to the desktop window. If your window then calls something like MessageBox(), well that's a modal dialog, and then the rules above kick in and the desktop gets disabled and the machine is toast.
Anyway, I suspect that it probably CAN be done, but whether you should is another question.