I'm writing a small window manager, that add a basic decoration around a window, but actually i have several question about adding/remove decoration of a window.
First Question
Actually the decoration is added during MapNotify event, but it seems to be not a good idea, because it add decoration also to a menu opened by an application everytime the mapnotify is fired with a new window, but i want only to add decoration to main window. Maybe i have to check if the current window is a child of another window ? Actually my code just create the decoration window with a specific name, so at every MapNotify request i give the decoration window a dummy name (Parent) to distinguish it from all other windows in that way if the MapNotify event is launched on a decoration window, at least it doesn't add another decoration.
But i don't understand if MapNotify is launched not only for parent window but also for childrend probably the risk is that i add more than one decoration window.
The actual code is the following:
void map_notify_handler(XEvent local_event, Display* display, ScreenInfos infos){
printf("Map Notify\n");
XWindowAttributes win_attr;
char *child_name;
XGetWindowAttributes(display, local_event.xmap.window, &win_attr);
XFetchName(display, local_event.xmap.window, &child_name);
printf("Attributes: W: %d - H: %d - Name: %s\n", win_attr.width, win_attr.height, child_name);
if(child_name!=NULL){
if(strcmp(child_name, "Parent")){
Window new_win = draw_window_with_name(display, RootWindow(display, infos.screen_num), "Parent", infos.screen_num,
win_attr.x, win_attr.y, win_attr.width, win_attr.height+DECORATION_HEIGHT, 0,
BlackPixel(display, infos.screen_num));
XMapWindow(display, new_win);
XReparentWindow(display,local_event.xmap.window, new_win,0, DECORATION_HEIGHT);
XSelectInput(display, local_event.xmap.window, SubstructureNotifyMask);
put_text(display, new_win, child_name, "9x15", 10, 10, BlackPixel(display,infos.screen_num), WhitePixel(display, infos.screen_num));
}
}
XFree(child_name);
}
So how to avoid adding of decoration on every window except the main application window (or the popup windows, there is a way to distinguish the type of window? How can i figure it out?)
Second Question
WHen i exit a program the window that is destroyed is just the application window not the parent decoration, how to destroy the current window and also the decoration?
I tried with the following:
void destroy_notify_handler(XEvent local_event, Display *display){
Window window = local_event.xdestroywindow.event;
XDestroyWindow(display, window);
}
But i receive the following error:
Error occurred: BadWindow (invalid Window parameter)
I use event instead of window because it seems that it contains the parent window (i read it from there: http://tronche.com/gui/x/xlib/events/window-state-change/destroy.html)
But even if i use window i have the same problem.
Or maybe i have to destroy the parent window earlier? Maybe during UnMapNotify? But how to understand if the event is launched just because the window is going to be closed or for some other reasons?
Thanks for the help :)
Read EWMH spec and you'll find answers to all questions.
Check "override redirect" window flag
You are trying
to destroy window which is already destroyed. Instead of using
event.xdestroywindow.event window id just delete your decoration
window.
Don't forget to add client window to save set if you are
writing reparenting WM. That way if you kill wm application windows
are not destroyed but reparented back to root window
Related
I have seen several tools adding a custom button and/or drawing on the title bar of all windows of all applications in Windows. How is that done?
Extra points for an example in Delphi.
EDIT:
I found something for dotNET that does this:
http://www.thecodeking.co.uk/2007/09/adding-caption-buttons-to-non-client.html#.VdmioEDenqQ
How I see this job:
First of all we should be able to paint this button on the our own window caption. This procedure will be used later
This part of the program enumerates the active and visible windows
This part of the program using injection attach our dll to enumerated windows
From injected dll we can draw the button on the window caption
Inside this dll we should process the click on the button
We should have mechanism to send result to our main program
I haven't done this, so the following is what I would investigate if I were to try:
For each application / each top-level window:
Create a floating window and position it over the title bar wherever you want it to sit. Set up the parent / child relationship, but this window is part of your own process. (There are occasionally problems parenting a window from one process to one from another process, but try. I'd avoid injecting into other processes if possible.)
You can investigate the window flags to see if the window has a title bar (ie if you should add a button) via GetWindowLong with GWL_STYLE looking for WS_CAPTION. The same call will also let you see the type of caption / frame, which you can combine with GetSystemMetrics with, eg, SM_CYDLGFRAME to figure out the right size for your button on this specific window's title bar.
This window is now your button: paint, handle clicks etc as appropriate.
Make it a non-focusable window so that clicks to it don't take focus away from the window is is on the title bar of. You don't want clicking it to make the title bar change colour, for example. Do this by setting the WS_EX_NOACTIVATE window flag, something like: SetWindowLong(Handle, GWL_EXSTYLE, GetWindowLong(Handle, GWL_EXSTYLE) orWS_EX_NOACTIVATE).
The main problem is to keep it positioned correctly when the window moves, is resized, etc. To do this, install a hook for the system move events. You can also hook minimize and restore via EVENT_SYSTEM_MINIMIZESTART and EVENT_SYSTEM_MINIMIZEEND. This will allow you to keep track of all windows moving around onscreen, such that you can adjust the button-window position if necessary.
That gives you a window which you can paint as a button (and respond to clicks etc), that visually is "attached" to other windows so it stays in the same place as the user drags the title bar, minimizes or maximises the app, etc, and that is in your own process without cross-process problems.
My window should be on top of a specific "target" window that I don't have control over.
When the target window is activated, I call SetWindowPos with HWND_TOPMOST to place my window on top of it while the target can still be the active window.
When the target window is no longer the foreground window, I want my window to still be on top of the target window, but no longer topmost, so other windows are not covered by it.
Two ideas I had:
Call SetWindowPos with hWndInsertAfter to be the just activated window. This fails when the just activated window is topmost, because my window then does not lose the topmost status. Another issue with this: If the just activated window is the desktop, then my window is placed below the target window.
Call SetWindowPos with HWND_NOTOPMOST to lose the topmost status. However, this brings my window to the top of all non-topmost windows, so it covers the just activated window. To fix this I have to bring the just activated window on top again with another SetWindowPos with HWND_TOP. This feels like the wrong way to do it and may cause flicker.
Is it possible to have a window just stop being topmost and placing it below the current foreground window?
The only automatic method to make a window permanently on top of another one whether the target window is top-most or not is an owner/owned relationship. You could try using SetParent to create this relationship but note that Raymond Chen does say it's not recommended.
Assuming you're tracking window activations somehow, I think your SetWindowPos idea (the first one) is the way to do it, with the following modification:
When the target window is active, set your window to HWND_TOPMOST
When the target loses activation, insert your window after the target window's immediate predecessor in the z-order (i.e. effectively still on top of the target window, but not top-most)
Something like this psuedo-code:
if (foregroundwindow == targetwindow)
SetWindowPos(my_window, HWND_TOPMOST, ...);
else
{
HWND hwndPred = GetWindow(targetwindow, GW_HWNDPREV);
if (!hwndPred)
{
// no predecessor so my_window will still be on top, just not top-most any more
if (GetWindowLong(targetwindow, GWL_EXSTYLE) & WS_EX_TOPMOST)
hwndPred = HWND_NOTOPMOST;
}
SetWindowPos(my_window, hwndPred, ...);
}
To prevent users from clicking in my main_window when a MessageBox appears I have used:
EnableWindow(main_window,FALSE);
I got a sample MessageBox:
EnableWindow(main_window,FALSE);
MessageBox(NULL,"some text here","About me",MB_ICONASTERISK);
EnableWindow(main_window,TRUE);
The problem is that when I press "OK" on my MessageBox it closes and my main_window is send to back of all other system windows. Why this is happening?
I tried to put:
SetFocus(main_window);
SetActiveWindow(main_window);
after and before : EnableWindow(main_window,TRUE) the result was strange: it worked 50/50. Guess I do it the way it shouldn't be.
Btw.
Is there a better solution to BLOCK mouse click's on specific window than:
EnableWindow(main_window,FALSE);
Displaying modal UI requires that the modal child is enabled and the owner is disabled. When the modal child is finished the procedure has to be reversed. The code you posted looks like a straight forward way to implement this.
Except, it isn't.
The problem is in between the calls to MessageBox and EnableWindow, code that you did not write. MessageBox returns after the modal child (the message box) has been destroyed. Since this is the window with foreground activiation the window manager then tries to find a new window to activate. There is no owning window, so it starts searching from the top of the Z-order. The first window it finds is yours, but it is still disabled. So the window manager skips it and looks for another window, one that is not disabled. By the time the call to EnableWindow is executed it is too late - the window manager has already concluded that another window should be activated.
The correct order would be to enable the owner prior to destroying the modal UI.
This, however, is only necessary if you have a reason to implement modality yourself. The system provides a standard implementation for modal UI. To make use of it pass a handle to the owning window to calls like MessageBox or CreateDialog (*), and the window manager will do all the heavy lifting for you.
(*): The formal parameter to CreateDialog is unfortunately misnamed as hWndParent. Parent-child and owner-owned relationships are very different (see About Windows).
I'd like to obtain the same values via code. However I'd like to obtain the top-most or root windows in the hierarchy
I seem to have got the Root Parent with
HWND rootWinHandle = GetAncestor(activatedWinHandle, GA_PARENT);
However I can't get the owner window correctly. Tried
HWND rootOwnerWinHandle = GetAncestor(activatedWinHandle, GA_ROOTOWNER);
For a particular modeless dialog, Spy++ returns the Main Exe window whereas the above line returns the input i.e. activatedWinHandle. Am I looking at the wrong api ?
I'd like to obtain this without MFC if possible... coz nothing else in my project requires it.
See the GW_OWNER flag for GetWindow.
The GetParent documentation states:
If the window is a child window, the return value is a handle to the parent window. If the window is a top-level window, the return value is a handle to the owner window.
Try GetParent(). I believe this will return the owner window of a window without the WS_CHILD style, and the parent window of a window with WS_CHILD.
Only bit of insight i can add it from Raymond Chen:
Remember that owner and parent are two
different things.
Modal dialogs disable their OWNERs.
All top-level windows have the desktop
as their PARENT.
From: What's so special about the desktop window?
Special demo (+src):
http://files.rsdn.ru/42164/parentowner.zip
screenshot: http://files.rsdn.ru/42164/parentowner.png
kero
I have this problem. I have an handler to the mainWindow of a certain application, and I want to simulate a keypress on that application...
I'm using sendMessage/postMessage api calls to do this. The reason why I don't use the .Net SendKeys function or the keybd_event of the win32 api, is that they simulate the keypress at a global level. In my case, I may have the application minimized and still want the keypress to be simulated.
The problem with sendMessage and postMessage is that you must pass the handler of the exact childwindow where you want the key to be pressed. For example, in notepad, if I send the key to the mainWindow, nothing happens, I have to send the key to the child window that basically consists of the white canvas where you can write.
With msPaint for example, if a user creates a new document, and opens a textbox in that drawing, and I want to simulate a keypress there, I have to get the childwindow of the childwindow of the mainwindow for it to works.
So I found a way that seemed to work for every situation, basically, I used getWindow with the parameter GW_CHILD, to get the child-window with the highest z-value. Then I do it again for the child window and continue doing it until a certain childWindow has no more childWindows..
And it seemed to work and I was very happy!
However... I found cases where this does not work. Firefox is one of them. Firefox has the mainWindow, and then has a childWindow that's pretty much the same as the mainWindow and then it has another childWindow which is the website area, ie, the area under the address bar and menus. If I am on www.google.com for example, and I want to simulate a keypress in the focused search box, it works, cause getting the child-window of the child-window gives me the correct childWindow. However, if the user clicks on the address bar for example, nothing changes in the way the getWindow works. It will still eventually get the childwindow that's under the address bar, doing nothing, instead of simulating the keypress on the address bar.
The thing is that I haven't found a way of getting the active child window of a certain application. I can only use the GetWindow method to get the child window of a certain window and do it until I find a child window with no childs. However, as you've seen in the firefox case, the active window is actually the parent of the child window that I get in the end.
I've tried other api calls like getTopWindow but I had no luck..
Anyone can put some light on this issue?
Thanks!
If the application violates the windowing rules of windows, you'll need an exception.
In Mozilla, it's like this (IIRC):
There's this 'god' window of the class MozillaUIWindowClass and with the "- Mozilla Firefox" string in its window text.
If you know the position of the address bar you can use the following function:
And provide it with the HWND of the 'god' window and the position of the address bar.
HWND ChildWindowFromPoint(HWND, POINT);
There is probably a better solution, I came up with this since I needed to automate mouse, which is position based.
For more information you might need to consult the sources of particular software, or spend whole day in Spy+. :>
You can use GetGUIThreadInfo to get info about the UI of a particular process.
If you have the main window you can call GetWindowThreadProcessId to obtain the process thread id. Then you can call GetGUIThreadInfo to get info about the active/focused windows, etc.
I also have to point that some applications only have one window and all its controls are windowsless (like Windows Live Messenger).