Hide the Graphic Window's taskbar button?

[Gary Domantay]

Hi Everyone,

Is there a way to not at all show the Graphic Window's taskbar button? What I did is that I've changed the parent window (Desktop) to a hidden window right after creating the Graphic Window.

    ' hDlg - Handle of a hidden DialogBox
    GRAPHIC WINDOW "", 0, 0, 500, 500 TO gWdw
    SetParent gWdw, hDlg

Problem is that, the button is still flashing in the taskbar right after creating the graphic window and then only gets hidden after changing the parent window.

[Rodney Hicks]

Perhaps you could locate it off screen and relocate it when it's required?
If you showed more code, preferably compilable, other ideas might come to mind.

[Michael Mattias]

Kind of surprising there is no "style" option for the GRAPHIC WINDOW statement. Sounds like a New Feature Suggestion waiting to be submitted.

Of course, with PB WIN you could use CONTROL ADD GRAPHIC as a control on a DIALOG NEW, and control the styles of both the underlying dialog and the graphic control itself.

As far as the taskbar thing, you can hide that by using style WS_EX_TOOLWINDOW for the underlying DIALOG, but that also results in a smaller caption which may not be desireable. (CONTROL ADD GRAPHIC creates a child window; child windows do not show on the taskbar).

[Gary Domantay]

Thanks Guys.

Below is a compilable source code. Wanted to popup the graphic window without flashing the graphic window's taskbar button.

#COMPILE EXE
#DIM ALL

#INCLUDE "WIN32API.INC"

CALLBACK FUNCTION DialogCallback

STATIC gWdw AS LONG

SELECT CASE CB.MSG
CASE %WM_COMMAND
    SELECT CASE CB.CTL
    CASE 100
        IF CB.CTLMSG=%BN_CLICKED THEN
            ' Want to display the graphic window without showing the graphic window's taskbar button
            GRAPHIC WINDOW "", 110, 110, 100, 70 TO gWdw
        END IF
    CASE %IDCANCEL
        IF CB.CTLMSG=%BN_CLICKED THEN
            IF gWdw THEN
                GRAPHIC ATTACH gWdw, 0
                GRAPHIC WINDOW END
            END IF

            DIALOG END CB.HNDL
        END IF
    END SELECT
END SELECT
END FUNCTION

FUNCTION PBMAIN () AS LONG
    LOCAL hDlg AS LONG

    DIALOG NEW 0, "TEST", 10, 10, 100, 70 TO hDlg

    CONTROL ADD BUTTON, hDlg, 100, "Graphic Window", 10, 10, 80, 20
    CONTROL ADD BUTTON, hDlg, %IDCANCEL, "Close", 10, 40, 80, 20

    DIALOG SHOW MODAL hDlg CALL DialogCallback

END FUNCTION

[Michael Mattias]

' Want to display the graphic window without showing the graphic window's taskbar button

             GRAPHIC WINDOW "", 110, 110, 100, 70 TO gWdw

==>

[COLOR="Red"]REM [/COLOR]           GRAPHIC WINDOW "", 110, 110, 100, 70 TO gWdw
                [COLOR="Red"] CONTROL ADD GRAPHIC  CBHNDL, .......[/COLOR]

Same drawing commands are used.

[Michael Mattias]

There's obviously some more work to do here...the GRAPHIC control is not going to fit within the boundaries of the owning dialog, so at the point you are at you will have to expand the size of the dialog to accommodate it.

Or, you can (as suggested above), use a second dialog whose owner (parent) is the current dialog... that second dialog has but one control on it, the GRAPHIC control.

The point being, if you want no taskbar entry, the GRAPHIC WINDOW is not the right tool for the job.

[Dave Biggs]

This code might be worth testing..

#Dim All
#Include "WIN32API.INC"
Global hHook???
Function HookGFXWindow(ByVal lMsg As Dword, ByVal wParam As Dword, ByVal lParam As Long) As Long
 
  If lMsg = %HCBT_CREATEWND Then      ' wParam has handle of Window about to be created
    UnhookWindowsHookEx hHook
    SetWindowLong wParam, %GWL_EXSTYLE, (GetWindowLong (wParam, %GWL_EXSTYLE) Or %WS_EX_TOOLWINDOW)
  End If
 
 Function = 0
End Function
'------------------/HookGFXWindow
 
Function PBMain()
 Dim gWdw???
 
  hHook = SetWindowsHookEx(%WH_CBT, CodePtr(HookGFXWindow), GetModuleHandle(""), 0)
  Graphic Window "", 0, 0, 500, 500 To gWdw
  Sleep 2000
  MsgBox "done"
 
End Function
'------------------/PBMain

[Gary Domantay]

Wow Dave! Nice workaround to set the graphic window's style before it gets created.

Thanks Michael, gone for Dave's code as i'm just so lazy enough to change my codes. I use the graphic window for my drop down menu.

Cheers

Gary