first off, I'm very new to using API's so please bear with me I'm on a steep learning curve !
I'm creating an application using Silverfrost Fortran FTN95.
I've been trying to initiate the opening of an initial Window within the program which uses the whole screen
useable area (the so-called WORKAREA in API parlance) but am having a problem.
Having used GET_WINDOW_LOCATION# API function within my Fortran code to obtain the dimensions and origin of the max possible area for
the window (without taskbar), I've then defined the 'origin' of the window to be at -n,-n where the border is n pixels thick and I've
increased the window dimensions by (2xn) in each direction so that the other 2 borders will be off-screen at top or under the taskbar at the bottom edge).
Anyway, I'm having difficulty obtaining exactly the same as produced via clicking the 'MAXimise button' on a window.
While the window produced itself seems to occupy the whole area available, when it appears the CAption appears right on the upper edge of the
CAption ba(i.e. not centre justified vertically).
Also, the MINimise, MAXimise and CLOSE buttons in top rh corner of window do not fill the whole depth of the CAption bar (they're about half the depth and indeed appear to be cut-off).
If I subsequently click the window 'MAXimise button' after initial window creation then the CAption and buttons re-align themselves correctly.
This is all illustrated in this image here:-
http://s1164.photobucket.com/user/john_pbucket/media/SilverfrostForumsImageFiles/MAXWIN-Summary_zpscajfx3vx.png.html
Note - I first created the full window with borders within the available screen area (this is the first example shown) where the window Border (8pix wide) is visible
The subsequent attempt to create the window as per the MAXimise button places the window at origin (-8,-8) and I increase the window dimensions by 16 (2xborder width) in each direction in order to get the borders off-screen, but thy're still there.
So, What series of Windows API commands should I be using exactly to get the window to open in a correctly maximised state, and are there any 'subtleties' of alignment and/or spacings I should be aware of which may be causing this problem?
I guess the question boils down to 'what sequence of API commands does the window MAXIMISE button execute ?' but I can't find an answer anywhere.
Maybe there are also some subtleties I need to know about with regard to any windows dimensions parameters which could be creating the anomaly ?
Any help/guidance would be appreciated. Thanks
It is possible to use the SetWindowPos API on Windows to keep a windows always on top of other windows, and there are many questions on StackOverflow dealing with this.
It is possible to keep only part of a Window always visible? I.e. specify a clipping region inside an existing window, and keep only that part visible?
A use case would be the following (on Windows):
User clicks on icon to run app.
User highlights a portion of the screen to focus on (similar to the Snipping Tool on Windows 7)
The highlighted part of the screen remains always visible, even when other windows/programs are moved over the selected region.
I know the issues that would spring up with having other applications that are also set to being topmost. Just curious if this is even possible?
Even if you change part of your window to be transparent to what's below (with a clipping region) it's still going to take all the mouse clicks, etc. that occur over the transparent part.
Your best bet is to create a new smaller window and make it top-most while hiding the main one.
Basically, the problem concerns border flickering during window resizing on Windows.
My first goal was to repositioning controls on a dialog during resizing of it.
I think I got a good dynamic repositioning without almost any flickering during this operation, but here I'm talking about main window border flickering.
However, I wasn't able to eliminate it at all.
To simplify the example try to create a simple win32 app with default code VS provided.
I'm testing it on Window 7(64bit) with the default theme (Windows 7 basic, no transparency) and VS2008.
1) Do not add code to the app.
2) run it in debug mode.
3) Drag the left edge of the window slowly toward the left of the screen and at the same time keep an eye on the right edge border of the window. You should see a redrawing taking in action.
4) Repeat step 3 moving rapidly the mouse, you should see the flickering on the right edge more clearly.
If you invert the edge, that is moving the right edge of the window, then the left edge stay firmly there without unpainted regions.
The same process happens for the top edge border vs. the bottom one.
Now, enable he Classic Theme (that similar to Win2000) and repeat again the steps above. The right edge is perfectly there without flickering at all!
If you keep an eye in the Output Window of Visual Studio when you run in debug mode you should see a list of dll loaded together with your exe. If you run in debug mode with the default theme you will see uxtheme.dll loaded. On the contrary, with classic theme enabled the uxtheme.dll is not loaded (dwmapi.dll is always loaded). Probably uxtheme.dll is loaded at runtime, based on desktop settings and it takes in action for redrawing your windows non-client area.
Another trick you could use to see the effect of this flickering is to add a case for WM_NCPAINT and return 0 instead to call the DefWindowProc(). Repeating the steps above and moving fast you should see a big part of the right edge of the window completely erased by background windows. This doesn't happen for the top and bottom ones.
Any idea to resolve this flickering?
Thank you!
UPDATE 2012\09\04:
- With Windows Classic theme:
uxtheme.dll is loaded at startup, but dwmapi.dll not. Uxtheme.dll, however, seems
not involved in any window rendering process. The window resizing is perfect.
- With Windos 7 theme (transparency on borders):
uxtheme.dll and dwmapi.dll are loaded at startup. Uxtheme.dll seems not involved in
any part of non-client area except some from the top of the window and the main menu.
But I'm not sure of the last. The window resizing is perfect.
-With Window 7 Basic theme:
uxtheme.dll and dwmapi.dll are loaded at startup. Uxtheme.dll is heavily used in the
rendering of non-client area. The windows resizing is bad.
My application is a Windows Forms one.
I tried using the windows wallpaper, but this depends on the "Fill", "Stretch", "Fit" or "Tile" settings.
I just need the image as it is on the desktop, but including the part "under" the taskbar, because this part is visible in case of transparent taskbar.
Why I need this?
Because I have a tray application which slides from under the taskbar when opening. And I need to set a mask there, so it can't be seen sliding, until it reaches the top of the taskbar. Again, this is only a problem when the taskbar is transparent.
I am not sure if I understood your question correctly. But to me, it seems that you need the image that has created wallpaper. If it seems easier, take a look at registry entries at following location:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
This will give you the path, size, tile/no tile etc. information for the wallpaper.
There is a Win32 function called PaintDesktop you could try but unless I'm misunderstanding things you should be able to just adjust the height of your window so it is never really behind the taskbar...
Why I need this? Because I have a tray application which slides from under the taskbar when opening. And I need to set a mask there, so it can't be seen sliding, until it reaches the top of the taskbar. Again, this is only a problem when the taskbar is transparent.
The problem here is that you're starting the slide up from the bottom of the entire screen, rather than starting from the bottom of the screen's working area (i.e., the top of the taskbar). That's why you're seeing the pop-up window slide up behind a transparent taskbar.
Luckily, the solution is much simpler than obtaining the desktop background and/or doing any type of masking. It's also much faster, and it's always good that your eye candy isn't unnecessarily taxing the user's computer.
All you need to do is determine the coordinates of the screen's working area, which is defined by Windows as the area that can be used by applications, not including the taskbar and other side bars. You can obtain this information easily in WinForms by querying the Screen.PrimaryScreen.WorkingArea property. This will return a Rectangle that corresponds to the primary screen's working area. Since you know that the taskbar is always displayed on the primary screen, this is exactly what you want.
Once you have the coordinates of the primary screen's working area, start your pop-up window's slide from the bottom of that.*
This is a good lesson of why you should always include an explanation of why you want to accomplish something. There's often an even better way that you haven't thought of.
*Of course, I'm ignoring the fact that a user might not have their taskbar positioned at the bottom of the screen. You can put it on either side or even on top. It sounds to me like you haven't considered this in your question, either. If this is an app that you're writing only for yourself or for a controlled environment where you can be sure that no one has their taskbar in non-default positions, that might be OK. But if you're writing software to distribute to a wider audience, you will need to take this into account. The rcWork coordinates will be correct, regardless of where the taskbar is positioned, of course, but you will need to know whether to start the pop-up window's slide from the bottom, the left side, the right side, or the top.
Is there anything like Winsplit Revolution for Mac OS X?
Try these:
Zooom/2 ($15) has been my favorite since I installed it. Fast, flexible, and minimizes the number of key combinations I need to remember
Divvy ($15) might soon replace Zoom/2 for me. It's closer to Winsplit. You can arrange windows on a grid, define your own grid arrangements, and define your own shortcuts. It also minimizes the number of keystroke combinations you need to remember. BONUS: There are Mac and Windows versions, which means if you use both platforms you can use the same window management method across all your machines.
Breeze ($8) makes it easy to make windows fullscreen, split left, or split right. It also lets you save screen states (generic) and for specific apps.
Moom ($5) is a more recent entry. It supports both keyboard shortcuts and mouse shortcuts. For the mouse shortcuts, moving the cursor over the greeen zoom button displays a popup list of different layout options: full screen, left/right half, top/bottom half, or any of the corners.
SizeUp ($10) mimics various aspects of WinSplit functionality, but it relies on many keystroke combinations that take time to learn. The advantage is quickly moving windows. The drawback is that it uses up a lot of global keyboard shortcuts, and there are so many I couldn't remember them all.
Cinch ($7) is a mouse-driven app by the makers of SizeUp. Drag your window to various hot zones on the screen edges and the window will "cinch" to that edge and resize to fill half the screen. Similar to the built-in resizing feature in Windows 7.
MercuryMover ($20) is quite powerful and offers fine-grained control. However, there are a lot of different key combinations and, overall, I didn't find it as easy to learn or as elegant as WinSplit. I uninstalled it almost immediately. It struck me as powerful, but inefficient and unwieldy.
The DIY approach (free) mentioned in another post is to combine some applescripts and bind them to quicksilver triggers. I haven't tried this. But it is a free solution.
I found the weak window management one of the hardest things to cope with when I started using a Mac.
Why go beyond spaces and expose?
Winsplit significantly adds to what spaces and expose can do. I didn't understand the appeal until I actually used it. Before that, I thought virtual desktops (ie, like spaces) was enough. Now I consider it must-have functionality, especially on large monitors and multi-mon setups.
On my Windows machine running 3 monitors, I would rank the importance of these different apps in the following order:
Winsplit-like window rearranging
Spaces-like virtual desktops
Expose-like application switching
On my MacBook, I've learned to approach it the other way.
Expose-like application switching
Winsplit-like window rearranging
Spaces-like virtual desktops
From the Winsplit website I understand more or less the functionality; in the past I actually used to have my window manager (Waimea) configured to do exactly that in linux.
You may try using Quicksilver to trigger one of a custom set of applescripts; each applescript would resize and move the currently focused window to a predefined location.
See this macosxhints post for inspiration...
ShiftIt is a free option. Assignable hotkeys to resize to different portions of the screen (Left, Right, Top, Bottom, Top Left, Top Right, Bottom Left, Bottom Right, Full Screen and Center with current size)
Link to ShiftIt on github
Just click on the big download button towards the right of the screen.
Spectacle is a good option, its free and open source. And easy to use with keyboard shortcut :
Windows can be moved to a number of predefined regions of the screen:
Move to the left half ⌥⌘←
Move to the right half ⌥⌘→
Move to the top half ⌥⌘↑
Move to the bottom half ⌥⌘↓
Move to the upper left ⌃⌘←
Move to the lower left ⌃⇧⌘←
Move to the upper right ⌃⌘→
Move to the lower right — ⌃⇧⌘→
Another question on StackOverflow adresses the same issue
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/276760/tiling-window-manager-for-os-x
One answer provided links to an app called TwoUP. It's free, and does the job on OSX!
Thanks to Dong Hoon's answer, I have developed a hybrid solution. Using the AppleScript Editor, you can create scripts to resize the current window, like this:
tell application "System Events"
set _everyProcess to every process
repeat with n from 1 to count of _everyProcess
set _frontMost to frontmost of item n of _everyProcess
if _frontMost is true then set _frontMostApp to process n
end repeat
set _windowOne to window 1 of _frontMostApp
set position of _windowOne to {5, 0}
set size of _windowOne to {1150, 735}
end tell
such a script will work on a 13" MacBook. Using subtle variations of this script saved to /Users/[YourUserNameHere]/Library/Scripts, you can have configure the AppleScript Editor to show itself in the menu bar, where it will allow you to select a script to run.
Using several different scripts, I'm able to resize and reposition any window with only two clicks.
Hope this helps.
It looks like TwoUp is dead, but here are some other options:
Cinch ($7) is like Aero Snap for Mac.
Breeze ($8) allows you to save window states and restore them like a template to another window.
Divvy ($14) shows a grid on the screen where you can select boxes to indicate how you want the window to fill your screen.
I haven't used Winsplit, so I don't know how it compares, but an app I developed, Optimal Layout, offers very flexible window tiling, as well as moving and resizing from the keyboard:
http://most-advantageous.com/optimal-layout/
You can also try Arrange application which features resize and reposition with keyboard shortcuts, on screen menu and by dragging window.
You should also try out secondbar. gives you an extra menubar at the second display + re-arrange options. See this link.
You can even try SplitScreenapp.com. It allows you to resize Mac Windows in many ways including full split, half split, drag and snap, etc.
I doubt it. Between Spaces and Expose, there's not much need for a third-party app to help manage multiple windows.