I am working on a utility application that controls other running applications. On certain input event my application displays a window, user can pick some operation from the window, the window disappears and control returns to the previous app. My problem is that clicking in my app’s window activates my application, thus removing focus from the previous application’s window. I can re-activate the previous application when my window closes, but I’d rather keep the original application activated all the time. Is that possible?
It's quite easy to to, just make your window an instance of NSPanel (a subclass of NSWindow), and set it as non-activating in Xcode/IB (or create it programatically, with NSNonactivatingPanelMask in the style mask).
One idea would be: while your app is running, try to keept track of the active window in the system.
After you activate your app and click the command button, restore the previous active window.
This is only an idea, I don't know how to do it on mac.
Related
I've currently connected two monitors via a dock to my notebook.
When I'm running my console application, the console window always pops up on the first monitor. How can I change that it's automatically opened on another monitor, e.g. on monitor 3? Maybe there is a property I need to modify?
It's very annoying to always drag the console window onto the monitor on which my IDE is opened.
Console applications (unlike GUI applications) don't create their own window; that's done by Windows, and in the case when you're running in an already created console, then you kinda inherit, e.g., cmd's window.
What you can do, though, is to find your window and move it to a different monitor.
Another option is to change the window manager settings for that application in the properties of the console window under Layout. Especially the check box »Let system position window«. To do so, first move the window where you'd like it to appear, then open the properties, go to the Layout tab, and just click »OK«.
I have developed a full-screen application that hooks into and launched by a 3rd party/client application. The problem is that the client application gets focus soon after it launches my application, with the result that although my application is full screen, and set to be on top, it does not receive keyboard input, as such the user has to click on it to bring it to focus, which makes for a poor user experience.
How can I restore focus to my application after the client acquires it?
If it matters, my application is written in C++ and has a QT UI.
Not quite the answer but the reason why my application does not have input focus. I'll let Charles Petzold explain (from Programming Windows 5ed, pg 213)
The Window that receives a particular keyboard event is the window that has input focus. The concept of input focus is closely related to the concept of the active window. The window with the input focus is either the active window or a descendant window of the active window -- that is , a child of the active window, or a child of a child of the active window, and so forth.
My Qt application is not spawned spawned by an active window and therefore does not have input focus. The solution therefore would be to parent my application to the active window. Unfortunately this is not straightforward in Qt, if at all possible.
Here is the Qt documentation:
http://doc.qt.io/qt-4.8/qwidget.html#activateWindow
http://doc.qt.io/qt-4.8/qwidget.html#raise
http://doc.qt.io/qt-4.8/qwidget.html#setFocus
Hope it helps when called after launch...
I have a desktop application written in Ruby that is using GTK2. It's just a small test application to play with GTK2, but I'm having problems achieving what I want to do. Is there any way using GTK2 to get at the titlebar (apart from setting the title), specifically to either add a button to it (beside the min/max/etc, B in the below diagram) or to add an option to the menu that pops up when you click the icon on the titlebar (A in the below diagram)?
I'm thinking there might not be because GTK is meant to work with many many different window managers, but I just wondered if there was. As a side question, what event does clicking the 'cross' button fire? At the moment if the user clicks that the window disappears but the program doesn't end - I need to capture that event and quit the program.
Thanks for any help, including hitting me over the head and telling me how silly I am.
Note that this is possible in GTK 3.10 and up, by using gtk_window_set_titlebar(). It replaces the window manager's title bar with a custom one. GtkHeaderBar is a good custom title bar class to use.
You can't, however, make it look just like the window manager would, because you won't know which window manager the user is running.
No, the title bar is owned by the window manager and you will typically not have direct access to it.
When the user tries to close the window by clicking the window manager's button, the window will receive the delete event.
Normally when creating a sub window (WS_POPUP), the child window will become activate and the parent will become deactivated. However, with menus, both remain active. At least I am assuming the menu is active, it at least has focus.
Example: Click on the file menu in notepad, the menu appears, yet the notepad window still looks active.
Is it possible to mirror this behavior with either a window style or responding to a particular message?
Thanks
Another example: Combo boxes seem to show a subwindow, yet do not deactivate the window. And you can click on that subwindow, while still maintaining an activate main window. Any ideas on how to grab the class /style of that window?
The list dropdown in a combobox is a bit of a hack, it is both a popup and a child window, I can't recommend that approach (Undocumented style combination, and IIRC, it is a bit buggy to do this with a "normal" floating window/toolbar)
This leaves you with two options:
WS_EX_NOACTIVATE (Main window will stay active, floating window is not active)
Handle activate messages (Both windows will look active)
I am surprised that creating a new popup window activates it. Normally you'd need to call SetActiveWindow. However check out WM_ACTIVATE and WM_NCACTIVATE on how to stop the window becoming deactivated.
A fact that a lot of people miss is that windows does not have a separate window manager component :- most of the window management duties are performed by each window - usually in DefWindowProc.
Most window positioning and activation / de-activation is done - ultimately - via a call to SetWindowPos - which always sends a WM_WINDOWPOSCHANGING message allowing the window to have a final say on what happens.
DefWindowProc also activate its own window in response to mouse clicks and so on.
The result of all this is, it is quite possible to create windows that never accept activation - it does require an extensive understanding of what messages and situations might have led to an activation.
Ultimately I can say that it is VERY handy to have a debugging setup configured for remote debugging - so that you can interact with your debugger without effecting the activation state of the system - and hence drop a breakpoint into the window in questions WM_ACTIVATE handler and simply debug any situation leading to an unwanted activation.
If You want to handle keyboard focus as well, it might be trickier - normally focus is given to an activated window - but again its usually the DefWindowProc responsible for assigning both. I just see it dangerous as having one window, still obviously activated, and another with focus. This will confuse any assistive software greatly.
I'd be tempted to perform a message loop level message hook - Similar to IsDialogMessage - to filter keystrokes intended for the popup window.
If you create your popup window with WS_EX_NOACTIVATE it will not be activated by user input (You could still activate it programatically) and therefore your main application window will still remain active.
In one of my first Cocoa applications I have just a single window with 2 NSTextField instances - for user text input and of output of text processing.
If my user clicks on the red x on the top left, the window closes but the application is still running and icon stays in the dock - the normal Mac behavior.
When the user double-clicks on the icon in dock or on the desktop, this does not reopen the window - apparently also normal Mac behavior, but confusing to the user.
To get the app back into a running state, the user has to force Quit from the main menu or the context menu, and restart the app by clicking on one of the icons.
I searched Apple doc and forums, and it seemed that the following should prevent the closing of the window (my first preference : hide the widow so it can be reopened later) :
add a delegate to NSApp
delegate implements -applicationShouldHandleReopen which calls [mainWindow makeKeyAndOrderFront:self]; and returns TRUE
delegate implements -windowShouldClose which returns FALSE
However, although -windowShouldClose is called, the window closes.
What am I missing here?
As an alternative (my second preference), I added to the delegate
-applicationShouldTerminateAfterLastWindowClosed which returns YES
This works, i.e. the application closes when the used clicks on the red x,
and the user can restart the app later without further ado.
Clarifications and pointers to specific doc and working code examples would be appreciated.
Rudi
"When the user double-clicks on the icon in dock or on the desktop, this does not reopen the window - apparently also normal Mac behavior, but confusing to the user."
If you want the window to re-open in that case, implement applicationShouldHandleReopen:hasVisibleWindows:. There's nothing un-Mac-like about opening a window when the user clicks the dock icon after closing all the windows; lots of apps do it and the delegate exists specifically to support that behavior.
First of all, your "alternative" behavior of terminating the app on window close is probably the preferred approach for your situation. Users may be confused when they can't close the window.
If you really want to prevent the window from being closed, why not just disable the close control on the window in IB?