Some placement issues with top taskbars

[Naamloos]

Hi! I found this project because someone I follow starred this.

I've been working on a similar project, yet found this. I think this could potentially be a better project than mine, so I decided to write up a couple of issues I've noticed with top taskbars to potentially help you a bit along the way.

1. Window thumbnails are rendered offscreen.
2. Taskview is rendered at the bottom of the display
3. Notifications and control panel are oriented from bottom-to-top when the taskbar is at the top

Some of these issues I've fixed in my own project. Following is some info that may help people potentially fixing it.

Window Thumbnail misplacement

When hovering a taskbar icon, the thumbnail is rendered above the taskbar. To fix this, I had my program poll every x milliseconds for the thumbnails window, and place it under the taskbar with the win32 call SetWindowPos. The thumbnails window's class name is TaskListThumbnailWnd. It's window title varies, but finding the window by class should work fine.

Taskview misplacement

The taskview has a similar issue to the thumbnail view, yet instead of getting rendered above the taskbar it gets rendered at the bottom of the screen (+ the taskbar height). Fixing this was done with a SetWindowPos call as well. It's window class is XamlExplorerHostIslandWindow. It's window title is empty.

Notifications and controlpanel view misplacement

I haven't found a fix for this yet. The notification view window has the same height as the display, even when the actual contents don't add up to that height. I haven't been able to calculate the actual height due to the actual window appearing to be XAML based.
The window classes for both is Windows.UI.Core.CoreWindow, with their window titles being Control Center and Notification Center respectively.

One small issue here is that these solutions require polling User32 APIs to find windows and their positions (and fix them).

In conclusion

I really want this to work, as I am extremely petty towards Microsoft's decision to lock the taskbar. Feel free to contact me if you want to discuss possible solutions :) (Discord Naamloos#2887)

By the way, my existing solution can be found here:
https://github.com/Naamloos/TopCenterStart11/blob/master/src/main.rs (it's a single source file, but it works.)

[Naamloos]

Oh! also the taskbar isn't centered. It's window class is Windows.UI.Core.CoreWindow with window title Start. Fortunately this window's size can be configured safely. I'm fairly sure it's fixed to 666x750 pixels, including the padding (I'm dead serious, I calculated it). I'm not sure whether it differs per screen resolution.

[jetspiking]

Hi there!

Thank you for your extensive reply. This sounds like a great solution for the thumbnail issue and the placement of the startmenu.

What is the issue with the Task View and notifications? I am not noticing any elements falling off sceen.

I will attempt to implement a fix for the thumbnail misplacement in the upcoming version, this is probably the most important issue with a top-aligned taskbar.

[Naamloos]

Apologies in advance for the long comment

Here's the issues I've noticed with the task view and notifications in screenshots I've made before for my own application.

First off, in this image you can see the desktop preview for the task view is rendered at the bottom of the screen.

Second issue: when there are no notificiation the notification view is rendered from top-to-bottom. e.g. the calendar spawns at the bottom of the screen despite the taskbar being at the top. I haven't found a real fix for this yet as I've said before.

Lastly, the startmenu gets rendered where it would render if the start button is left-aligned, but it should align to the center as my start button is there.

Again, feel free to check my project for some inspiration for potential fixes. Polling seems required as the windows tend to jump back to their original positions.

[jetspiking]

Thank you for your reply! I think your solution for these issues works very well. I edited the readme to mention the prioritization of this issue in the upcoming release. Polling is not the most elegant solution. However, your implementation seemed very lightweight. I will attempt to configure the polling rate as low as possible, for minimum CPU-usage, without noticing the position change.

[Naamloos]

Small suggestion, perhaps it would be an option to run these polling methods as a windows service?

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/extensions/windows-service

[jetspiking]

For a next release I hope to give the entire app support to keep it running in the background (and hide the taskbar icon). In the registry a path can be set to launch an application. A service could be prevented this way to keep this application as portable as possible. This was suggested in the following issue by @Euclidite.

#14

[jetspiking]

Due to Microsoft removing the registry tweak to place the taskbar in the top position (forced to bottom) for version 22533 and later the development of this feature has been halted, since I would like to find an alternative for setting the taskbar to the top position. Please view issue 23 for more details. I will tag @Naamloos GitHub's repository for a temporary solution for those who want to use the top-aligned preview windows for the time left on earlier versions. This is visible in issue 9.

Issue 9
Issue 23

[Naamloos]

aw man

[Naamloos]

time to find a hack?

[jetspiking]

I really have no idea if I can find a solution for this issue. The entire app was built around registry tweaks, I also did not really consider Microsoft removing them, without providing any alternative at all.

I wonder if the taskbar position can be manipulated in the same way as how you adjusted the preview window. I should play around a bit with the API.

[Naamloos]

I'm 100% sure you can move around the Taskbar, but I can't say for sure whether full screen windows will adapt.

Actually, I might know a way..

[Naamloos]

I'll try something later tonight, or tomorrow

[Naamloos]

Considering almost everything in Windows UI is built of.. windows, I have a suspicion that the actual desktop area might also be a window. I'll see later today if I can figure out a hack that moves the taskbar without a dependence on the registry.

[Naamloos]

With "desktop area" I mean the area controlling where windows can fill.

[Rush-er]

Take a look here, i found this tool useful
https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher

[Naamloos]

@jetspiking I released an update that fixes the registry hack being patched. (taskbar is now moved "manually").

Feel free to take a look at my code, but of course I'd personally prefer just linking back.
https://github.com/Naamloos/TopCenterStart11/releases/tag/2.0