Restrict mouse movement over a specified window handle - windows

I'm looking to simulate a kiosk mode for Safari on Windows. OSX will not work with my input hardware and Chrome's GPU acceleration is too slow for the machine I'm using.
The only plausible solution [so far] is to run Safari and send an F11 (fullscreen) keystroke, but prevent the URL bar from expanding when the mouse reaches the top pixels of the screen.
I've looked and can't seem to find any good solution and would like to know if I can restrict the cursor movement from reaching the top pixel of the screen?
If anyone has any other solutions, that would be great!

You can use the ClipCursor function to do this.
Confines the cursor to a rectangular area on the screen. If a subsequent cursor position (set by the SetCursorPos function or the mouse) lies outside the rectangle, the system automatically adjusts the position to keep the cursor inside the rectangular area.

You can poll the cursor position and correct it using a timer, but this is not ideal. You could also cover the top bar by a transparent topmost window. This way, input will never reach the top bar.
EDIT: If Internet explorer is an option you have the possibility to use the COM object to embed what you need in a custom application. Other browsers might have similar APIs, but I'm not familiar with them.

Related

Whenever I move the camera on the left side of the screen, the cursor appears in-game. Unreal engine 5

The issue.
The mouse keeps escaping the full-screen whenever I either jump, move, rotate the camera or keep spinning to the left. But only on the left side of the screen, not the right, not the middle, not beneath, only on the left side.
This has happened in other unreal engine 5 games as well, but not in every single one of them.
What I've tried so far is:
Disabled Set bSHowMouseCursor nodes. [No effect.]
Set an Event BeginPlay > Set Input Mode Game only > Get Player Controller > Set SHow Mouse Cursor (Unchecked) [No effect.]
Created a new template (A blank one), then packaged it for testing. [Mixed effects. It slightly reduced the rate the mouse showed on the left side of the screen.]
Set an Event BeginPlay > Set Input Mode Game and UI > Get Player Controller > Set SHow Mouse Cursor (Unchecked) [Mixed results - I had to hold right click in order to move the camera, in which case, the mouse stopped showing, but as soon as I released it, the left mouse not only did appear as well, but the camera could not be moved and the cursor appeared permanently on the left side of the screen.]
Changed both the software and hardware cursors. But the cursor is unchanged. So it's not the game's cursor that appears in-game. It's the actual windows cursor.
I tested every option in the Default Viewport Mouse Lock Mode.
Deleted both Saved and the Intermediate folders.
Someone told me it has something to do with how the mouse is locked (or not) on viewport. And that, that might be the reason behind the cursor leaving escaping full-screen.
I don't have two monitors. The game is in full-screen. The issue persists in windowed mode as well. No widgets.
Tested it in packaging and in a Standalone game. (Issue persisted.)
The issue happens only if I click the left mouse button. If I play the game without clicking it, the cursor does not appear in-game.
Update:
It appears like going to the game's exe's compatibility and changing the high DPI settings' scaling behavior to application fixes the problem but reduces the fps. This is a temporary fix but I need a permanent one.
This is a weird issue.
What is on your left side desktop?
Do you use any apps that have an overlay?
If you have any apps try to disable them temporarily at startup from task manager, restart and check again.
In UE5, have you tried setting the mousecapture to true, especially in fullscreen.
Sometimes the mouse can escape...
Are you using a standard resolution/aspect ratio?
Some non standard resolutions and aspect ratios can change the way the base OS responds to captured/non captured input.

Detecting when another application is clipping the mouse cursor?

What I am trying to do is to determine when another application is clipping the mouse cursor. I am using SetWindowsHookEx(WH_MOUSE_LL,...) to detect mouse movement. I could test the mouse position against its previous position every time my WH_MOUSE_LL callback is called, but this wont work if any of the sides of the application's window are touching the edge of the desktop as windows itself is also clipping the cursor.
More specifically, I am writing a program that overrides the default mapping of the virtual desktop when there are multiple monitors. I have everything working except in the case where a fullscreen application is running and constraining the mouse to its window. I cannot distinguish between the cursor actually trying to exit the side of the screen or if the current in-focus application is clipping it.
Is it possible to tell weather the in-focus app is clipping the mouse or maybe to prevent windows itself from constraining the cursor within the desktop, allowing the aforementioned check to work? Is there some other solution that I am missing?
Thank you.
Ah, I'm an idiot. GetClipCursor(RECT*) will do the trick.

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

Keep part of a window always visible

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.

How to get a print screen of the desktop without any windows or the taskbar?

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.

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