I am writing a Cocoa Objective-C application for the macOS, and I am using this very good answer here to be notified of window position changes in other applications. Within my app, I can use the event returned by [NSApp currentEvent] to determine the key modifiers. How can I ascertain the same for another app that I am monitoring ? To be simple, I would like to know if a window of an application was moved or resized while pressing the command (or option) key. Many thanks for any help.
I am developing a desktop application that capture computer activities on mac osx using objective-c. I know it's possible to capture it when user presses on the keyboard and mouse position. But I don't know how to detect when user switches tasks on computer, like closing a window (of other applications), activating another window (of other applications)?
Does anyone have any experience in that?
Yes, via the Accessibility system. For example the NSAccessibilityMainWindowChangedNotification.
Can anyone enlighten me as to how one would be able to trigger a "non standard" realtime notification on a Windows 8 machine? My objective here was simply to find a slick method through which the end user is presented with an enhanced notification slide displayed via a slide in/5 second fade out dialog box.
Best example I can think of to illustrate what I am trying to achieve would be thinking of it like when the charms bar is presented which can automatically fade away. I simply require that this enhanced notification layer is somewhat customizable in order for me to provide summary content along with 3-4 buttons a user can press directly. This notifications needs to be triggered automatically upon the system receiving a push notification.
I have loomed into various "notification" methods such as default windows notifications, offline Google Apps notifications,... problem however is that they all seem not to allow me to customize the notification window to meet my needs.
Any suggestions / examples would be very helpful.
BTW - as an alternative solution - is there simply a way that I might be able to have Windows automatically load and "snap" into view the contents of a specific Windows app containing my content to the left or right side of the screen (upon receiving a push notification vs displaying the standard toast bubble?
Are you looking for something like growl?
I've started doing Windows 8 Store app development for some projects at work, but I do not have a touch screen device of my own at home. If I write a personal app for submission to the store, I must use my own hardware since I can't use the work computers for personal projects. My concern is getting into a situation where I submit an app to the store, then have touch-screen users describing issues that I can't replicate on a non-touch-screen device.
Are there any functions or capabilities or interactions that behave differently in a Windows 8 store app when using touch vs. using only a mouse? Are there any scenarios I could encounter where I would be at a loss to reproduce or troubleshoot a user's problems if I do not have a touch screen?
As Konstantin suggested, a tablet is strongly recommended.
The next best thing is to use the device simulator in Visual Studio. It will let you change screen sizes, and allows you to simulate basic touch gestures with the mouse. This MSDN link has more info: Testing Windows 8 apps using Visual Studio 2012
Microsoft have introduced events that are pointer agnostic meaning that they should function the same way regardless of whether you are using a touchscreen, a mouse or a pen. Those are the MSPointer events. Here's some documentation. Using event handlers for these events mean that you should not be getting complaints from users about the touch friendliness of your application. However I still strongly suggest that you acquire a surface and test your application on it. Not just for the touch friendliness but also because of performance differences.
With windows 8, is it possible to create an application that is always visible? For instance, in previous versions of windows, there is the task bar with quick launch icons. Can I create something similar to the quick launch icons that are always on the screen?
If you are referring to a Windows 8 Store app then the answer is no. You can have a live tile and toast notifications that provides updates to the user which may cause the user to launch your application.
A good article to read to understand how your Windows Store apps will run on Windows 8 go here to learn about Application lifecycle (Windows Store apps). This will explain the App execution state.
It is not possible in the RT version, but the same is possible in the desktop version. If you have a desktop app, you can pin it to the taskbar. But any Window store app cannot be pinned to the taskbar. What you can do instead is move the app to the beginning of your Home screen, so anytime you click the Windows button your app will be visible right in front.
Do you mean always visible in the Star Menu screen? If so, you can add tile updating functionality to your application. As long as the user has the application pinned to the Start Menu, he would see the updates. Check the link below for an introductory tutorial.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsappdev/archive/2012/04/16/creating-a-great-tile-experience-part-1.aspx
"Quick Launch" has a very specific meaning, which you may or may not have been referring to in your question.
Below is the Quick Launch bar in Windows 8 - essentially a toolbar pointing to a location in your %AppData% directory. Prior to Windows 7 it was available by default, but the ability to now pin items directly to the taskbar rather supersedes it. Here's how you can restore Quick Launch if you really want to :)
It's, of course, available only in the Desktop mode and not on the Modern UI, where pinning a tile is the best you can hope for, and it's all up to the user to pin it AND to determine where it shows up on their Start Screen.
Another option worth mentioning (although more like system tray than quick launch) is lock screen presence. If the user chooses so and your app supports that, he can add it to his lock screen:
either as a a badge (up to 7 apps)
or as a tile notification (single app only)
This is not a way for the user to quickly start your app (other answers have already covered these options) but a way to stay visible and keep your user informed.