Cannot set Form.Left to a negative value in FormShow - delphi-7

I am trying to "move" a form around in the FormShow event, using Delphi 7. It seems that if I assign a negative number to Form.Left, that number becomes zero. I am trying to get a form to appear on the leftmost monitor, which has negative X values. Are there conditions under which Delphi or Windows will force Left to be non-negative? DefaultMonitor is dmDesktop, FormStyle is fsNormal, OldCreateOrder is TRUE, Position is poDefault, WindowState is wsNormal.
Also, while the form is fairly small at design time, it is maximized at run-time, even though I can find no place where the WindowState is altered, nor any place which uses "max".

I believe Align is set to alClient.
This will force the window to fill the screen even if WindowState is wsNormal.
One clue is that Left is zero. When a window is maximized, if it has the default border of bsSizeable, Left will be -8, (depending on your Windows display settings.)

Related

Windows API Functions in FORTRAN - What series of API's is needed to Simulate a Window MAXimise button action?

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

ZedGraph scrolling left truncates data

I am using a ZedGraphControl in a WindowsForms project in C#. The ZedGraphControl is V5.1.5.
The data in the control is static and I add it all before the form is shown. The X axis of the data consists of numbers indicating seconds offset from the beginning. in other words from 0 to some number of seconds.
I want to initially show the last 5 seconds, but provide a horizontal scrollbar so the user can scroll back and forth. I set the "graphPane.XAxis.Scale.Max = maxX;" where maxX is the largest X value in my data. I set the "graphPane.XAxis.Scale.Min = maxX - 5;".
The data starts off displaying the way I want it, but when the user scrolls the horizontal bar, bizzar behavior occurs.
As you drag the thumb of the scrollbar to the left, the beginning of the data shown in the grid moves to the lower values as expected, and the thumb of the scrollbar moves to the left, but the right edge of the thumb stays at the right of the scrollbar and you cannot move back to the right. It is as if the data to the right of the viewing range gets truncated as you scroll left.
I cannot find any reason for this nor any way to control it. Does anyone have any ideas about this behavior?
Ok, found it myself.
I found a fine article that describes scrolling:
Add a ScrollBar
In it the author specifically says "the scrolling will be wacky because the scrollable range has not been set".
I used the sample "Manually Setting the Scroll Range" and the part that I was missing is setting the zedGraphControl1.ScrollMinX and zedGraphControl1.ScrollMaxX properties. Once I defined these values everything started working as expected. I also found that in my case, the value of zedGraphControl1.IsAutoScrollRange had no effect, but I left it set to false to be consistent with the example. This would probably have an effect if the dataset is dynamic.

TabCtrl_SetItemSize and user drawn tab controls

I have this Win32 user-drawn tab control that is created as:
CONTROL "Tab1",IDC_TAB_CONT,"SysTabControl32",TCS_BOTTOM |
TCS_OWNERDRAWFIXED | NOT WS_VISIBLE,0,14,185,88
I'd like for this control to have its tabs resize as never to have to see the "sliding arrows":
Now, pretty much everything about this control works as expected, except for that fact that it won't respond to TabCtrl_SetItemSize. Try as I may, the size I get for the tabs when I get to draw them (in the DRAWITEMSTRUCT passed to WM_DRAWITEM) is always the size that fits the longest caption in them and never the size I've set with TabCtrl_SetItemSize.
However, in the TabCtrl_SetItemSize documentation, it says that:
[TabCtrl_SetItemSize] sets the width and height of tabs in a
fixed-width or owner-drawn tab
control.
The only way I've managed to have a decent resizing is by setting a dummy string of the desired length in it by sending the control a TCM_SETITEM message, and writing the desired text in it at draw time. This is rather inconvenient and not a particularly nice hack.
Is there anybody who would know
Why TabCtrl_SetItemSize isn't working as expected? and/or
How to set the tab size properly?
Many thanks,
joce.
Setting TCS_OWNERDRAWFIXED style is not enough, you have also to add TCS_FIXEDWIDTH style.
The minimum size of a tab is at least icon width + 3 if icon is present.
If you have icons (imageList attached to tabControl), you might get those "sliding arrows" even with fixed width (if there is less space available than: number of tabs*(icon width+3)

MFC: Why does my spin control work backwards

Using MS Visual Studio, I have attached a spin control to an edit control using the "auto buddy" property.
The spin control alters the edit box, but the up button decrements the value and the down button increments the value.
How do you fix this?
Because that's how it is. 8-) You work around it using SetRange.
The documentation says "The default range for the spin button has the maximum set to zero (0) and the minimum set to 100. Because the maximum value is less than the minimum value, clicking the up arrow will decrease the position and clicking the down arrow will increase it. Use CSpinButtonCtrl::SetRange to adjust these values." ...without any decent explanation.
The reason it works this way is because a spin control is just a thinly veiled scroll bar, and windows use a coordinate system where rows increase as you move down (so the down arrow increases the value).
To fix it, just interchange the min and max values you are currently useing when you call SetRange.

Auto-Hide taskbar not appearing when my application is maximized

My application draws all its own window borders and decorations. It works fine with Windows taskbars that are set to auto-hide, except when my application window is maximized. The taskbar won't "roll up". It will behave normally if I have the application not maximized, even when sized all the way to the bottom of the screen. It even works normally if I just resize the window to take up the entire display (as though it was maximized).
I found the problem. My application was handling the WM_GETMINMAXINFO message, and was overriding the values in the parameter MINMAXINFO record. The values that were in the record were inflated by 7 (border width) the screen pixel resolution. That makes sense in that when maximized, it pushes the borders of the window beyond the visible part of the screen. It also set the ptMaxPosition (point that the window origin is set to when maximized) to -7, -7. My application was setting that to 0,0, and the max height and width to exactly the screen resolution size (not inflated). Not sure why this was done; it was written by a predecessor. If I comment out that code and don't modify the MINMAXINFO structure, the Auto-hide works.
As to why, I'm not entirely sure. It's possible that the detection for popping up an "autohidden" taskbar is hooked into the mechanism for handling WM_MOUSEMOVE messages, and not for WM_NCMOUSEMOVE. With my application causing the maximize to park my border right on the bottom of the screen, I would have been generating WM_NCMOUSEMOVE events; with the MINMAXINFO left alone, I would have been generating WM_MOUSEMOVE.
This is dependant on whether 'Keep the taskbar on top of other windows' is checked on the taskbar properties. If it's checked then the taskbar will appear.
But don't be tempted to programmatically alter this setting on an end users machine just to suit your needs, it's considered rude and bad practice. Your app should fit whatever environment it gets deployed to.

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