On Mac there is a window flag/call: WindowTitleHidden + [nativeWindow setTitlebarAppearsTransparent:YES]
which basically makes the title bar to be "embedded" inside the window itself instead of creating a frame that "holds" the window. Like this:
Notice how the minimize, maximize and close buttons are on the same row as the app's widgets.
Is there something similar for Windows?
Like this:
Code: https://github.com/alexandernst/TrueFramelessWindow
AFAIK, you must draw them yourself and then reply to the WM_NCHITTEST mesage that Windows sends to your form to query where the mouse is positioned. That way you can tell Windows that the mouse is located over a, say, maximize button, although Windows itself didn't draw one there.
The painting can be done with the help of VisualStyleRenderer or ControlPaint.
I hope these questions will point you further:
Winforms: Add a close "x" button in a UserControl
Winforms - WM_NCHITEST message for click on control
Related
I am working on a program that will replicate, and then extend the functionality of Aero Snap.
Aero Snap restores a maximized window, if the user "grabs" it's title bar, and I am having difficulties identifying this action.
Given a cursor position in screen coordinates, how would I check if the position is within the window's title bar? I am not really at home in the Win32 API, and could not find a way that works reliably for complicated scenarios such as:
Note that tabs that chrome inserts into the title bar. Office does something similar with the quick launch menu.
title bar hits are via the message "non client" messages - ie the area of a window that is not the client (or inner) window.
WM_NCLBUTTONDOWN is probably the message you want to trap.
You also probably want to set a window hook to hook mouse messages, if its the NC message you want, you handle it your way, if not - pass it on to the message chain.
Edit: if Chrome is using the DwmExtendFrameIntoClientArea calls to draw the tabs, then you will need to use WM_NCHITTEST.
I must find the coordinates of a point which is out of the application window.
I intend to have a button "Specify Point" and when the user clicks this button, their next mouseclick will be registered by the program as this desired point. The problem is I don't know how to implement this....Any ideas ?
You can call SetCapture to direct mouse clicks from anywhere on the desktop to your window. Call ReleaseCapture after the click to return to normal.
If the user clicks on another application you will receive the click but the other application will also be activated, which you probably don't want. To avoid this, an alternative approach is to overlay the entire desktop with an always-on-top very nearly fully transparent window (a fully transparent window won't get clicks). Transparent windows are known as layered windows; use the WS_EX_LAYERED extended style to create one.
I need to draw an icon that moves approximately in sync with mouse cursor and is always on top of all windows.
OS: Windows 7
I have a solutions that work to some extend by drawing my icon in a top most transparent window. There are some major drawbacks in this solution since that top most window interferes with other top most windows and some full screen apps do not work correctly. Examples are start menu and task bar that will overlay my window if I do not regulary set it to be top most. For some full screen applications performance of updating position of window with icon hugely drops and it does not follow mouse smoothly.
There is another method that I came across where an icon is drawn directly to the device context of desktop Draw mouse pointer icon?. This solution has a drawback that there seems to be no good way of how to remove "trail", especially if desktop content changes quickly.
So my question: is there an ultimate solution that does not have the above mentioned problems?
Is it possible to draw above all windows in the "layer" of mouse cursor? Or make a second mouse cursor with my custom icon that I will control (I know that widows can display two independently controlled mouse cursors like CPNMouse)?
Can someone point me to the right direction?
Thanks!
Use a top-most window with transparency set via WS_EX_LAYERED / UpdateLayeredWindow.
If you set the WS_EX_TRANSPARENT style as well then the window won't intercept mouse input.
I want to create a Window like when a context menu pops up or clicking the menubar. I want a Window that will be like this and that I can take over its paint event. Sort of like what is created when you select a sub tool in Photoshop.
EDIT:I want to know how to create controls like the one that comes when you select a sub tool in Photoshop, these do not seem to have a parent window. Those little description popups are a good example of this type of window, and menu items, those rectangles have no parent window.
Thanks
EDIT2: see this: http://cdn-viper.demandvideo.com/media/CB3C805F-421E-45AE-8359-39D59D8F0165/jpeg/20412728-192C-462A-AF8E-1F30BA77AE05_2.jpg
You will notice the window for the sub tools, it is not constrained to a parent window.
But how do they get a nice shadow
around it, and how does it still stay
with the main window without a parent?
That's your real question.
There are several ways of getting the shadow. One is that the window is actually two windows, the "shadow" plus the "main" window.
When you create the flyout window (that's what it's called), you position it near the toolbar. If the toolbar gets a WM_MOVE message, it's your responsibility to call MoveWindow() on the flyout to keep it lined up.
Edited to add
The dwExStyle parameter of CreateWindowEx() should include WS_EX_LAYERED and probably WS_EX_TRANSPARENT, because the 'shadow' will use alpha blending. The hWndParent parameter is the application's main window. The x and y parameters must be calculated as an offset of whatever button the window is to be associated with.
I would like to send some keystrokes from a C++ program into another window.
For that reason I would like to have the user select the target window similar to how it is done in the Spy++ utility that comes with Visual Studio (drag a crosshair cursor over target window and have target window highlighted by a frame).
How is this dragging and selecting done in Windows? I am completely lost as to where I might start to look for a mechanism to implement this feature.
Here's how it's usually done:
Capture the mouse using SetCapture. This will cause all mouse messages to be routed toward your app's window.
Handle the WM_MOUSEMOVE message. In your handler code, grab the window underneath the mouse using WindowFromPoint. That will get you the HWND of the window the mouse is currently over.
Now that you've got the window, you need a device context (HDC). You can get one using GetWindowDC for the specified window.
Now you can draw into the DC using typical GDI functions.
There are some things you have to look out for - cleanly erasing the selection rectangle and so forth, but that's one way to do it.
You could also draw into a screen DC to do this, but in any case you'll need the window handle in order to get the window rect.
If you Google around Spy++ source code you'll see a few examples of this technique.
Formers answers are wrong.
Spy++ source code has been given on G. Groups for years (see mainly Win32 api ng news://194.177.96.26/comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.win32)