Titlebars of some windows apear under the TaskBar

[George Valkov]

I am one of the users that prefer putting the TaskBar on the top-side of the
screen. Auto-hide is disabled. Some of the applications will position their
windows at (0, 0), so that their titlebar is behing the TaskBar and I need
to press ALT+space+M+arrow_down, to meve the window every time.

Does anyone know of a workaroud? Perhaps of a way to set the (0, 0) position
to the (bottom-left) side of the TaskBar? Or shold the entire design of
Windows be changed, so that it is impossible for a window to have a
(left-top) corner under or above the TaskBar (just like is is in the Gnome
desktop)?

 

[Vincent Xu [MSFT]]

Hi George,

Thanks for posting.

Actually, normal application will use relative position to design the UI.
In other words, if you put task bar on the top, the application will adjust
to under the taskbar. However, maybe some application designed to use
absolute position and this will make it behind the taskbar.

For this situation, I'd like to suggest you contact the third-party vendor
of this application for assistance. Please understand that we don¡¯t have
environment to reproduce and troubleshoot your issue, but please feel free
to involve me during the process of contacting the manufacture support, I
am glad to provide any information.

Thanks.

Best regards,

Vincent Xu
Microsoft Online Partner Support

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--------------------

 

[George Valkov]

However, maybe some application designed to use

absolute position and this will make it behind the taskbar.

May be that is the case. I also noticed that some applications will save
their coordinates, but re-calculate it incorrectly on the next start, and
move the window about 20px left and up. That is the case with
http://www.nirsoft.net/ a lot of very usefull freeware utilities. I just
sent them a feedback request from their web-interface.

Another application is graphedit.exe, but it will use (0, 0) coordinates
only for the first-run. Then it will restore it's previous coordinates
corectly, so it's not a problem.

Thank You Vincent!


George Valkov

 

[Alec S.]

Actually, normal application will use relative position to design the UI.
In other words, if you put task bar on the top, the application will adjust
to under the taskbar. However, maybe some application designed to use
absolute position and this will make it behind the taskbar.

For this situation, I'd like to suggest you contact the third-party vendor
of this application for assistance. Please understand that we don¡¯t have
environment to reproduce and troubleshoot your issue, but please feel free
to involve me during the process of contacting the manufacture support, I
am glad to provide any information.

He's right, Windows automatically subtracts the space reserved for the taskbar, toolbars, and other such windows from the desktop
space. Some apps might however use the screen coordinates instead of desktop coordinates. I always give both options to my users,
but not everyone will (not everyone is even aware of the difference.) You could try using some utilities that can automatically
move windows, or snap them. I'm can't think of any off the top of my head, but an Internet search might find some.

 

[George Valkov]

Cheers to everyone! (-:

And to prove what You just wrote... Here are two C# examples:
1 This commands may put window's title behind the TaskBar and make it
inaccessable, so dear programmers: Please use with caution!
Form1.ActiveForm.SetBounds(0, 0, 400, 400);

Form1.ActiveForm.Top = 0;

Form1.ActiveForm.Left = 0;

2 This commands are safe and therefore the prefered way to move a window (in
my case, with TaskBar on the upper-side of screen, the window is adjusted
beside the down-side of the TaskBar and it's title and content are fully
visable):
Form1.ActiveForm.SetDesktopBounds(0, 0, 400, 400);

Form1.ActiveForm.SetDesktopLocation(0, 0);



Now Alec, You just reminded me of a great idea: On one of my support CDs
that came with the ATI All In Wonder 9600XT video card, there is a program
called: ATI Hydravision. It does the job with aranging windows and I also
noticed a great display performance improvement while moving windows:

Have You tried the Windows Vista yet? There's a technology... the way I
understand it is that: each window is drawn in it's own surface, and when
You move it, windows tells the video card: move this layer here and the
other one there (completely in hardware). I guess that Hyravision uses the
same technology or something similar. This is also implemented in my
skin-manager (WindowBlinds 5) so it alone will cause the display-performance
to improve exactly the same way.

Also there are no longer trails of redrawing background windows while moving
the foreground one, because windows are not drawn on one surface.

George Valkov

 

[Vincent Xu [MSFT]]

Hi Everyone,

It is really an interested discussion here. I also learned a lot from you
guys. Feel free to post in our newsgroup in case you encounter any problems
in the future.

Have a good day!


Best regards,

Vincent Xu
Microsoft Online Partner Support

======================================================
Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security

======================================================
When responding to posts, please "Reply to Group" via your newsreader so
that others
may learn and benefit from this issue.
======================================================
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties,and confers no rights.
======================================================



--------------------

 

[Alec S.]

Now Alec, You just reminded me of a great idea: On one of my support CDs
that came with the ATI All In Wonder 9600XT video card, there is a program
called: ATI Hydravision. It does the job with aranging windows and I also
noticed a great display performance improvement while moving windows:

Have You tried the Windows Vista yet? There's a technology... the way I
understand it is that: each window is drawn in it's own surface, and when
You move it, windows tells the video card: move this layer here and the
other one there (completely in hardware). I guess that Hyravision uses the
same technology or something similar. This is also implemented in my
skin-manager (WindowBlinds 5) so it alone will cause the display-performance
to improve exactly the same way.

I don't use HydraVision, I don't really like it (mainly because when it "maximizes" a window across multiple displays, it actually
just stretches them, the dialog frame is still the resizing kind, and the maximize button remains in it's un-maximized state.)

I haven't tried Vista yet but I've heard it's supposed to do a lot of fancy things including a 3D file browser. It's supposed to
come with DX10 which should support advanced graphics (but probably only on newer hardware, maybe even hardware that isn't even out
yet.) As for the rendering improvements, I'm not really sure. I suppose it could work but the last time I used WindowBlinds, it
was pretty—although WindowFX was fun. It can't be rendering each window into the Overlay surface since most display adapters only
have one. That's the surface that is hardware accelerated (the one which the TV runs in, and videos are rendered in when possible).
Either new cards will support multiple overlays which DX10 will support, thus allowing Vista to render much faster (unlikely to
suddenly support innumerable overlays), or (and this is more likely) Vista uses the single overlay surface for it's graphics instead
of the—ancient—GDI. You'll notice that Windows' graphics functions are still not hardware accelerated (well they are, but not to
the level they could be) because if they were, the overlay would be occupied and the MMC's TV app would not run—although it still
does not run sometimes even when the overlay is free. If that's the case, then all of Windows' graphics would run faster but
I'm not sure how it would affect things like the MMC.

For a fun way to play with the overlay surface, get a copy of Karsten Sperling's Alpha. It allows you to use the overlay to display
the desktop through whatever color you select. It was originally meant to allow the command prompt to be "transparent", but you can
set it up to make anything transparent. Set the color key to D4D0C8 and all of Windows will become transparent.

 

[George Valkov]

I don't use HydraVision, I don't really like it (mainly because when it

"maximizes" a window across multiple displays, it actually
just stretches them, the dialog frame is still the resizing kind, and the
maximize button remains in it's un-maximized state.)

In Hydravision CPL: window control: [checked] Single monitor windows / or
(o) Max to window corners. This will maximize windows to a single monitor.
Well, if You really need mazimize to full desktop, then use ATI CCC\Displays
manager: disable monitor 2, in -- Attached displays currently disabled \
context menu \ Streth main ... on TV or secondary... In the very moment you
decide to play a movie or watch TV, you'll have it disabled for a good long
time :-(



When I said "each window on it's own surface" it was a gues I made, bucase:
when I open several windows, then grab one and start moving it fast all
around, the maximum CPU usage will be 15%. If I unload Window Blinds 5
(WB5) and use GDI, it will be 100% and background windows will have trails
while redrawing. By the way all windows that cannot be skinned from WB5 will
use GDI.

WB5 does not use overlay, because the screen is accessible to CPU
(print-screen) and as You said TV application works (well, not always --
because ATI have good hardware, but poor programming team).


With GDI, when You move a window, You're not only rendering the window to
the new location, but you render all windows that were behind it (pretty
slow). On the other hand You can draw in multiple layers with DirectX, then
You can use DX transformations for minimize / restore effects like in
WindowFX. and Windows Vista. So there's some hardware acceleration.


With direct 3D (D3D) CPU passes images to the (video card -- used as DirectX
filter). It will process them and pass the result back to the CPU, now CPU
can pass it again for another processing or send it to the render (back to
the video card, but this time used as rendering device). This design is
universal, because You can pass streams from one filter to another many
times, but in most cases: You only want to render it so You have 2
additional passes (filter --> CPU --> render, while filter and render are
physically on a same board) and that will degrade the performance. CPU has
access to the streams so You can capture the screen (desktop or games). With
overlay this 2 passes are missing, so CPU can't see what's on the screen
box, but there're advatages: shorter delay and better performance.


By the way, in the performance options for WB5 there's a Hyperpaint setting.
Performance will improve only if it is enabled. I've set it to largest.
Unfortunately despite Stardock claims that WindowBlinds is supported on
Windows 2003, using it on the terminal server may cause disasterous things!
It also causes problems with other tools for accessing remote desktop, like
DameWare mini remote control on XP.

For a fun way to play with the overlay surface, get a copy of Karsten
Sperling's Alpha. It allows you to use the overlay to display
the desktop through whatever color you select. It was originally meant to
allow the command prompt to be "transparent", but you can
set it up to make anything transparent. Set the color key to D4D0C8 and
all of Windows will become transparent.

Well then... The backup operation of my Backup/Testing 2003R2 Server has
just finished, so I'm ready to boot to it and test this program


George Valkov