Can't Programmatically Minimize Window - vb.net

I'm trying to create a custom TitleBar for my game, i got everything else to work like i wanted but i can't get it to minimize without using the windows buttons from the windows frame.
I have a Game class with these in the constructor :
'Having this here or in the constructor doesn't make any difference
Public AsWindow As Windows.Forms.Form = CType(Windows.Forms.Form.FromHandle(Me.Window.Handle), Windows.Forms.Form)
Public Sub New()
Window.AllowUserResizing = False
Window.IsBorderless = True
end sub
Public Sub Minimize()
AsWindow.WindowState = System.Windows.Forms.FormWindowState.Minimized
End Sub
Calling Minimize cause a "System.NullReferenceException" on AsWindow, regardless of if i define AsWindow on runtime or during the initiation.
Note that i have added "System.Windows.Forms" as a reference.
Things i've tried:
This is where i got the initial code for the AsWindow field.
And here i tried to send a Message to minimize the window.

The problem you're facing is that the MonoGame API (which is exactly like XNA) doesn't expose a direct way of controlling the window. This kinda makes sense, because MonoGame supports platforms that don't have a concept of a "window" so to speak.
However, it's usually possible to get access to the underlying platform specific code and workaround these issues. It's important to keep in mind however that this approach will be platform specific and might break if MonoGame changes under the hood.
Last I checked, under the hood MonoGame uses SDL on the Windows desktop platform. This may not be true anymore, but I do have some code in an old project that gives the general idea. My code is in C# but it should point you in the right direction.
The first step is to import the method you want from the SDL.dll. This not managed code do you can't reference it like you normally would in .NET project.
[DllImport("SDL2.dll", CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Cdecl)]
public static extern void SDL_MaximizeWindow(IntPtr window);
Once you have access to the method you can call it by passing in the window handle.
SDL_MaximizeWindow(Window.Handle);
Obviously, this is code to maximize the window (that's the only code I had handy) but I'm sure you can figure out how to do the minimize version yourself.

Related

How to add a property page to DirectShow filter

I have written an DirectShow-Filter *.ax to integrate a Hardware (Camera). All works fine with my filter.ax and there Transport Images to Skype success.
Now I am want to integrate a Dialog to handle the camera-options with UI.
In my Filter.ax is calling the function QueryInterface(REFIID riid, void **ppv)
when riid == IID_ISpecifyPropertyPages
I am have seen that the Dialog must be in a other DLL like Com ?
My try to open the Dialog directly works, but no windows Messages are incoming.
I must also write an MFC Dll they is starting by PropertyPage IIID ? My Propertypage is a large MFC Controles TabControl with some items. I can see it if i start the filter from MFC Test app. AfxInit I can't execute. (Wrong Lib versions I must use the directshow baseclass(knowledge example)
I don't now why my Dialog got no Messages, what is the right way ?
You don't need to implement a property page in a separate DLL (even though it is a possible).
DirectShow filter property pages are regular COM property pages implemented using ISpecifyPropertyPages. Property pages are separate COM objects implementing well known interfaces like IPropertyPage.
Windows SDK Ezrgb24 sample shows how to implement a simple transform filter and also features a property page (CEZrgb24Properties class). It should be a good start for a property page implementation for your filter.
If you prefer to implement the property page in a separate DLL, a typical way is to define a shared COM interface, the filter would implement it and reference the property page by its CLSID, the property page would query this interface from the filter instance and use it for configuration actions.

How do you Cache-bust individually rendered files while debugging?

Currently it is impossible for devs to easily work together. While debugging our code minification and bundling are turned off and so is the cache buster. This leads to every dev that touches javascript having to open every javascript file and force-refresh to make sure they aren't missing changes.
I found a couple references that I thought might work but none of the implementations have worked out yet.
The first is to apply a transform to the individual Bundles via an IBundleTransform.
Public Class DebugCacheBuster
Implements IBundleTransform
Public Sub Process(context As BundleContext, response As BundleResponse) Implements IBundleTransform.Process
If BundleTable.EnableOptimizations Then
Exit Sub
End If
For Each file As BundleFile In response.Files
file.IncludedVirtualPath &= GetPathHash(HostingEnvironment.MapPath(file.IncludedVirtualPath))
Next
End Sub
End Class
This looked promising but I have not been able to get it to work. I tried adding a new instance of this class to the constructor of each bundle and I also tried looping over all of the bundles after they were created. My break-points are hit and IncludedVirtualPath appears to have been updated. After continuing on with rendering the paths are not updated.
I also tried to create a custom VirtualPathProvider and a custom VirtualFile and overrode VirtualPath to return the correct value but again, when it rendered, the path was bare.
Did I do something wrong with the transform? Is there some other way to implement this?
Apparently this code will not work with version 1.1.0 of System.Web.Optimizations. After upgrading to version 1.1.3 (and adding an assembly binding redirect to solve a compatibility issue with Web Grease) the snippet in the question works flawlessly.

Controlling level and focus of windows other apps with CGPrivate functions

Question
How to use these private functions on other windows? It would be nice to have this knowledge back in the wild. I am specifically trying to get CGSOrderWindow and CGSSetWindowLevel to work.
I was trying in the direction of:
temporarily register as the dock and then register the dock as the dock again immediately afterwards
or
code injection into the Dock process per this comment:
Also, the author of the above project seems determined to make all core functionality available as a framework. It seems to be implemented as code injection into the Dock process.
Reason I know this is possible
I have been doing work on trying to setLevel on window of another app, and focus window of another app if focused. I am posting this again with the info I learned because from my searching online, I know this was done in the past, its just the knowledge is not publicly out there anymore. The sourceforge pages are no longer there. So I was wondering if you could help me make this information public again.
This is the topic I read that gave me this information - http://cocoadev.com/HowtoControlOtherAppsWindows
Here you see comments like:
You cannot control an another app's windows from a user-level process, unfortunately.
SlavaKarpenko
You can, Slava, you just need to register as the Dock. It might be possible to temporarily register as the dock and then register the dock as the dock again immediately afterwards, not sure. I think the call you'd be wanting to investigate as CoreDockRegisterDockOwner in HIServices.framework.
FinlayDobbie
You could also use APE or similar to do control the windows, or (as mentioned above) register as the Dock (look for the private APIs with Universal Connection in their name). Has anyone found a polite way of getting the Dock to give up its universal connection? The only way I can find is to force quit the Dock and grab the universal connection when it's not looking (which prevents the dock reloading).
SamTaylor
There's an open source project up on sourceforge.net that looks much more like the window managers I've used on Unix boxes than Space.app (or Space.dock): http://wsmanager.sourceforge.net/
SteveCook
Verifying things work
This is what I learned, from the sources at bottom of this post, we see all these functions work with CGWindowIds, so how do I get that, this is how:
Get all windows with CGWindowListCopyWindowInfo. Then access each element from that array with CFArrayGetValueAtIndex and then get the CGWindowId with objectForKey:, kCGWindowNumber, and then integerValue.
Now if I try to focus or set level of a window that is OWNED by the app running the code, it works fantastic. For instance:
MY_TARGET_CGWINDOW_ID = 179;
rez_CGError = CGSOrderWindow(_CGSDefaultConnection, MY_TARGET_CGWINDOW_ID, kCGSOrderAbove, 0);
Will focus it, rez_CGError is 0. Even if the window is minimized, it is unminimized, without animation, and shown.
Now however, if I try this on a window of a different app we get some errors:
MY_TARGET_CGWINDOW_ID_of_other_app = 40;
rez_CGError = CGSOrderWindow(_CGSDefaultConnection, MY_TARGET_CGWINDOW_ID_of_other_app, kCGSOrderAbove, 0);
This fails and rez_CGError is 1000, which I suspect means "cid (CGSConnection) used does not have permission to modify target window". The same happens if I first do [app activateWithOptions: (NSApplicationActivateIgnoringOtherApps | NSApplicationActivateAllWindows)] before making the call above.
So I first get the cid of that owning window like this:
var rez_CGError = CGSGetWindowOwner(_CGSDefaultConnection, MY_TARGET_CGWINDOW_ID_of_other_app, &ownerCid);
This works good and I get ownerCid is set to a value. Then I do the focus command with this new connection:
rez_CGError = CGSOrderWindow(ownerCid, MY_TARGET_CGWINDOW_ID_of_other_app, kCGSOrderAbove, 0);
However this gives rez_CGError of 268435459, which I suspect means "current app does not have permission to use this ConnectionId (cid)". (Same happens if I call activateWithOptions first.
My Sources for the Private Functions
Here is the sources for some private functions I found - https://code.google.com/p/undocumented-goodness/source/browse/trunk/CoreGraphics/CGSPrivate.h
This one source here contains a function that is not in the above link - CGSGetConnectionIDForPSN - i test it and it exists - from - https://github.com/mnutt/libqxt/blob/767498816dfa1742a6f3aee787281745afec11b8/src/gui/qxtwindowsystem_mac.h#L80

Methods best practice - VB.NET

I have a program that is getting pretty big and it is a pain to find everything through all the functions and classes.
I am trying to break it up into other files based on their method.
Some of these functions have calls to others in the main class. I changed most my functions from private to public to access this. I had problems calling certain code created windows so importing mainwindow helped that.
My last problem is editing the mainwindow ui from one of the module files. I want to make sure im on the right page before i continue breaking it up. My only guess is that anything they updates the ui should be left on the main class.
Thanks
The only code in your form class should be code that talks to other classes and updates the UI based on data from other classes.
Depending on your application, the form class might handle change events from other classes to update the UI or pass user input to other classes in Change or Click events.
A couple options:
Use callbacks into the your main window.
Create events for when you need the form updated. Your program logic raises the events, and your main window class can consume them.

VMR-9 Renderless mode: SelectAtPosition() crashes

How to solve the SelectAtPosition() crash when using VMR-9 in renderless mode?
The SelectAtPosition() crashing problem when renderless mode is used can be solved by implementing IVMRWindowlessControl9 interface in your custom-allocator.
In addition to IVMRSurfaceAllocator9 & IVMRImagePresenter9, implement IMRWindowlessControl9, too!
class CAllocator : public IVMRSurfaceAllocator9, IVMRImagePresenter9, IVMRWindowlessControl9
Define all the virtual functions of IVMRWindowlessControl9. In my case, I needed to put extra codes
on the following functions to make the mouse handling properly work: GetAspectRatioMode(), SetAspectRatioMode() ,SetAspectRatioMode(),GetVideoPosition() & GetNativeVideoSize(). The other functions just return S_OK.
M$ SDK documentation did not mention that we need to implement this!!! After hours of debugging,
I've noticed that quartz.dll tries to query this interface from the custom-allocator. Sometimes it really pays to be patient!