I would like to use windowless activation for a Flash Player control. Unfortunately, there is a very low amount of documentation available about this, even on MSDN. Most articles I found describe related issues, or how to make your own AX control support windowless activation. I have found some articles describe the hosting process (which I want), but with ATL. However, I already have an application, utilizing Qt and using the mingw-gcc compiler, in which it is probably not easy to incorporate.
I would like to learn the most possibly basic way of painting a windowless ActiveX control somewhere (on a DC?), and sending keyboard/mouse events to it. Links or detailed advice is appreciated.
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I got stuck at this basic matter.
I can't find any other way to obtain input but through CoreWindow class (handling KeyDown/KeyUp/PointerMoved events or calling GetKeyState in the loop).
I thought that I had to deal with input device directly, but it turns out that interactions with generic HID devices are blocked for UWP applications.
There is also a "low latency" sample among UWP samples, that uses some twisted method through creating dedicated XAML control, but it seems more like a method to coexist with XAML rendering loop while I'm dealing with non-xaml application.
Maybe someone knows a good workaround for this?
I think the title is pretty self explanatory. The material available on the net is largely on setting up custom images during the lock screen time.
The answer given here talks about invoking the windows provided lock screen by using the user32.dll.
I want to ask if there is any API that would let me use my own lock screen on Windows 7? The reason is that I have developed my own face recognition algorithm but I want to integrate it with the windows locking mechanism.
One application that actually does the same thing is Winlockpro that creates custom lock screens for Windows 8. It uses custom forms in VB for the images and links the rest to a DLL.
Can someone guide me to some useful resources (API's etc) for this?
You need to implement a Credential Provider. There are several examples on the web, and the link above to MSDN should get you started. (Believe it or not, it's much simpler than implementing a GINA provider was in XP.)
I've been looking into dimming a screen on a Windows platform from my program. I know that there's a SetMonitorBrightness API that allows this, but the issue for me is that it would be nice to be able to dim the screen on Windows XP as well (which that API does not support) and also dim screens on desktop computers.
So I did some research and found this utility that seems to dim my screen on a Windows XP desktop without a problem. I tried to contact the author to find out how they implemented the dimmer but I did not hear back from them.
So I was curious to hear from developers on this site, how do you think they managed to dim the screen when the SetMonitorBrightness API is not supported?
PS. I am a newbie developer myself trying to write an energy saving program for our small business. It is a nonprofit organization and we don't have funds to hire a Windows developer to do this for us. Most of our computers are Windows XP desktops, so as you can see I can't use SetMonitorBrightness API as it is widely documented on the web.
Thanks in advance.
In the case that you cite, have a look at the screensaver with Dependancy Walker. My guess is that they create a full screen window and use SetLayeredWindowAttributes() to set a semi-opaque setting for the window, thus making the screen appear dimmed. I doubt it would save you much money.
You might want to look into the DDC protocol which allows you to control aspects of some monitors. The MS API that allows you to do this can be found roundabout here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff570290%28v=vs.85%29.aspx and you should look at the I2C functions too.
Alternatively you could look for a ready made library to do the DDC stuff for you, such as http://www.nicomsoft.com/products/i2c/. They too have a dimmer application that is free for personal use and non-free for commercial use. They may even allow you to use it for free if you contact them and explain it's for a non-profit organisation.
If you are trying to do this as an energy saving program why not use a screensaver setting that turns the monitor off after a certain period of idleness? In any case
Forgive me if this information is outdated, but I have done this in the past using SetDeviceGammaRamp. The 'Get' version is available too for state saving and restore. I have seen it used in C# programs through, so it might still be relevant albeit not too common anymore.
If you've ever seen an application in the Adobe Creative Suite 5 (CS5), you may have noticed that it doesn't look like the native Windows GUI.. They have modified it to have a different look to it.
Where would someone begin to make an application that has a custom skin? CS5 uses the Adobe Source library for it's widget/control management, so I tried downloading and compiling the Adobe Source Library to see if I could make a nice skinned app like Photoshop CS5, but after finally getting it to compile and tested it, I realized the library was only for managing widgets and not skinning the GUI, like CS5 has.
Where would I begin to make a nice skinned program like Adobe Cs5 applications? Can anyone point me in the right direction?
Do I simply use the WM_PAINT Message from WinAPI and render my own widgets using openGL or something?
Use QT and QML. It doesn't have a steep learning curve. You define your GUI with JavaScript and add lots of effects and enjoy using PNGs in every single thing you can imagine. Then you do your application logic with C++. In fact you can do some fairly advanced things other than UI with QML but it's better to seperate concerns as always.
I use it at work for a product to be released. Overriding WM_PAINT is not the only way in Windows but I strongly recommend QT instead of Win32 API when it comes to custom drawn UI. At least to my experience, it is way easier than my adventures with Win32 API.
If you want to implement custom controls by yourself, you need to implement own WM_PAINT and draw with using GDI/GDI+. For toplevel windows and popups you can use Layered windows. But I think you can find a lot of professional custom controls over internet for reasonable price if you don't want to implement by yourself.
I think your choices re creating a modern skinned app are: QT or WPF (via C++/CLI).
If you have an existing Win32 API application and you do not want to rewrite it using a library that supports skinning you might want to have a look at Stardock DirectSkin.
If you decide to rewrite your application I would also recommend Qt. Guitar Pro 6 was rewritten using Qt, read more about their experience here.
I'm porting an audio processing application written in C++ from Windows to Windows Mobile (version 5+). Basically what I need to port is the GUI. The application is quite complicated and the GUI will need to be able to offer a lot of functionality. I would like to create a touch friendly user interface that also looks good. Which basically means that standard WinMo controls are out the window.
I've looked at libraries such as Fluid and they look like something I would like to use. However, as I said I'm developing i C++. Even though it would be possible to only write the GUI part i some .NET language I rather not. My experience with .NET on Windows Mobile is that it doesn't work very well...
Can anyone either suggest a C/C++ touch friendly GUI library for Windows Mobile or some kind of "best practices" document/how-to on how to use the standard Windows Mobile controls in order to make the touch friendly and also work and look well in later versions of Windows Mobile (in particular version 6.5)?
There are two aspects to your question:
Libraries. For this I would take a look at Qt for CE/WinMo. The C++ alternative is MFC.
GUI Design. About Face and Designing Interfaces (J. Tidwell) are a couple of good books.
Also:
make sure that your UI is finger-friendly, I hate it when I have to use a stylus.
keep in mind that on touch screens you can't have tooltips (no mouse over) and you don't have a mouse pointer. WinMo uses click and long click, but the latter is not easily discoverable.
add joystick UI navigation
don't try to cram too many controls on the tiny screen, use tabs or drill-down menus
I don't know any good C++ libs but you could try SlideUI mobile controls (it is in .NET), but you wouldn’t need any specific knowledge to use it and it's available via design time and easy to use.
http://www.devslide.com/products/slideui
Disclosure: I am affiliated with devslide.