how to detect a right-to-left windows interface c#? - windows

Question

i want to place a small form above the notification icons
in left-to-right interface the icons to the right of the screen
in right-to-left interface the icons to the left of the screen
i want the code for that to work on xp and win7 please

Answer 1

Is this what you're looking for?
private static bool IsRightToLeft()
{
return CultureInfo.CurrentUICulture.TextInfo.IsRightToLeft;
}

Answer 2

The flag you're looking for is WS_EX_LAYOUTRTL (400000 hexadecimal). You get this flag by calling GetWindowLong(FindWindow(L"HHTaskBar", NULL), GWL_EXSTYLE).

Answer 3

Any System.Windows.Forms.Control support such check: Control.RightToLeft.
MSDN

Answer 4

Stuart Dunkeld
that dosnt help , CultureInfo has nothing to do with the interface
if i could locate the location of the start button (on the taskbar) that would help

Answer 5

If you insist you can find the position and size of the Windows start button.
To do that, first add this inside your class:
[DllImport("user32.dll")]
private static extern bool GetWindowRect(IntPtr hwnd, ref Rectangle rectangle);
[DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
public static extern IntPtr FindWindowEx(IntPtr hwndParent, IntPtr hwndChildAfter, string lpszClass, string lpszWindow);
[DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
public static extern IntPtr FindWindowEx(IntPtr hwndParent, IntPtr hwndChildAfter, IntPtr className, string lpszWindow);
Then use such code.. in this example I show its width but you can read its Left/Right location as well:
IntPtr hwndTaskBarWin = FindWindowEx(IntPtr.Zero, IntPtr.Zero, "Shell_TrayWnd", null);
IntPtr hwndStartButton = FindWindowEx(hwndTaskBarWin, IntPtr.Zero, "Button", null);
if (hwndStartButton.Equals(IntPtr.Zero))
{
//Maybe Vista/Windows7?
hwndStartButton = FindWindowEx(IntPtr.Zero, IntPtr.Zero, (IntPtr)0xC017, null);
}
if (hwndStartButton.Equals(IntPtr.Zero))
{
MessageBox.Show("Sorry, can't find the Start button/orb");
}
else
{
Rectangle rect = Rectangle.Empty;
if (GetWindowRect(hwndStartButton, ref rect))
MessageBox.Show("Start button width: " + rect.Width);
}
Tested successfully under XP and Windows7, the Vista/7 trick credit goes to Waylon Flynn in his answer to this question.