Compact all the minimized forms into 1 application tag

[pamela fluente]

Hello friends, I have a simple question.

If I have an application with several forms, you see on the windows
bar, usually on the bottom of your screen, the various tags for the
various forms.

Now if the bar gets crowded, windows automatically puts all the
minimized forms of the same application together, and indicates how
many of them are collapsed in that tag.

For instance: "10 vshost.exe".

Now my question. How do I tell in VB.net my application to force
showing all the minimized forms in that way, I mean collapsed in 1 tag
only.

I want to do programmatically that action, which windows does
automatically when the bar is too crowded.

For Each f As Form In My.Application.OpenForms

' ... how ??

Next f


-P

 

[Tom Shelton]

Hello friends, I have a simple question.

If I have an application with several forms, you see on the windows
bar, usually on the bottom of your screen, the various tags for the
various forms.

Now if the bar gets crowded, windows automatically puts all the
minimized forms of the same application together, and indicates how
many of them are collapsed in that tag.

For instance: "10 vshost.exe".

Now my question. How do I tell in VB.net my application to force
showing all the minimized forms in that way, I mean collapsed in 1 tag
only.

I want to do programmatically that action, which windows does
automatically when the bar is too crowded.

For Each f As Form In My.Application.OpenForms

' ... how ??

Next f


-P

Set the forms ShowInTaskBar property to false...

 

[pamela fluente]

Set the forms ShowInTaskBar property to false...

No Tom, perhaps I have not been able to explain well. I do not want
to hide them. I just want the minimized widow tags to be grouped
togheter.
One minimized window for all. Am I explaining well ?

[ Sorry about my poor English.]

-P

 

[pamela fluente]

"Group similar taskbar items" is an option on the Taskbar tab of the StartMenu
properties. It may or may not be selected. I don't think your program can decide
whether to do this, or when to do this.

Yes, I was looking for a (possible) way to control that feature
programmatically. I liked the grouped task windows, but I can set them
only expanding the icons on the bar. I was looking for a way to do
that by code.

Is there at least a command to expand the icons on the bar (like
when one clicks on the bottom blue right arrow) ?

Thank you.

-P

 

[Nathan]

Even if you could find a way to do this, are you sure your program *should*?
As a user, if I have that Windows setting turned off, I probably don't want
a program overriding it and grouping all the windows. It would confuse me
(make me think something was wrong with the way the OS was working) or
possibly even frustrate me.

From a UI design perspective, you should ask yourself what is the end goal
you're trying to accomplish, and is there a friendlier way to do it?

"Group similar taskbar items" is an option on the Taskbar tab of the
StartMenu
properties. It may or may not be selected. I don't think your program can
decide
whether to do this, or when to do this.

Yes, I was looking for a (possible) way to control that feature
programmatically. I liked the grouped task windows, but I can set them
only expanding the icons on the bar. I was looking for a way to do
that by code.

Is there at least a command to expand the icons on the bar (like
when one clicks on the bottom blue right arrow) ?

Thank you.

-P

 

[pamela fluente]

Even if you could find a way to do this, are you sure your program *should*?
As a user, if I have that Windows setting turned off, I probably don't want
a program overriding it and grouping all the windows.  It would confuse me
(make me think something was wrong with the way the OS was working) or
possibly even frustrate me.

Actually its not exacly like you say. I am talking about all the
forms of the *same*
application. In my case I can have a dozen of windows and it's a lot
convenient to
have them grouped so that with a simple click one can can have a
quick view of what's
going on (just looking at the strings which reflect the text property
of the form) and
easily select the righ window. I can see that in my case it's very
convenient to have the
task windows grouped.

From a UI design perspective, you should ask yourself what is the end goal
you're trying to accomplish, and is there a friendlier way to do it?

The point is that when one expands the icons, then the task tabs get
grouped anyway,
so its nice to have them grouped from the very beginning, without
having to click on the
bottom right arrow to achieve the result.

Anyway, i guess we can happily live without, if it's not possibly
done in vb ;-)

-P