Always-in-front / Always-on-top window, on Windows

[tscizzlebg]

Specification

• pywebview version: 3.2
• platform / version: Windows 10

Description

Not an issue so much as a question. Is it possible to keep a window in front of all other windows, for example for a small control panel in the corner? tkinter has something like .wm_attributes("-topmost", 1) to keep a window in front. Maybe Python has a way to do this via some Windows api, even if it's not part of pywebview api.

Practicalities

• YES/NO I am willing to work on this issue myself.

• YES/NO I am prepared to support this issue financially.

N/A just asking a question.

[tscizzlebg]

pywebview/webview/platforms/winforms.py

Line 465 in 48edc2a

def toggle_fullscreen(self):

In winforms.py, in BrowserForm.toggle_fullscreen, it sets self.TopMost, but nowhere else do I see TopMost referenced. That suggests to me that it's not currently an option, but that it would be possible.

Is that an accurate evaluation of the current status?

If so, I perhaps would be down to contribute, but would need some guidance. Is this feature even a candidate for you to accept a PR about? If so, how would you want this feature designed, for you to accept such a PR?

[r0x0r]

This feature is not implemented, but I gladly welcome a PR.
It can be implemented as an argument to create_window, eg. create_window(..., on_top=False). Window object should be update to expose on_top status as well. Changing it during runtime can be a plus, but it can be done without.
An examples, documentation update and a test case should be tackled as well. Most window feature tests are rather dumb and do not actually test for the behaviour, but rather verify that no errors occur during run.

[tscizzlebg]

Fantastic, thanks!

[tscizzlebg]

If I implement this for Windows-only and document that it's Windows-only for now, is that fine?

I think I can bang it out on Windows no problem, but researching and testing on other OSes will be more of a hassle (I don't even have a Mac for example)

EDIT:
And is it preferred for other platforms to pass, or raise NotImplementedError?

[tschnibo]

Hey, thank you for this great package!

I followed this issue with great interest. I am looking for a solution (on Windows, non-fullscreen), to implement:

• show window after window beeing hidden.
  and (simultaneously)
• Bring window to Front (but just until the user clicks next to the window)

I think I can implement this with the topmost solution. Or is there a better way to do this?

Edit: I just saw, that there is a "bring_to_front" method in winforms. Thats maybe closer to what I need.

My appologies if I overlooked this in the documentation!
Many Thanks!

[r0x0r]

@tschnibo What are you trying to achieve exactly?

[tschnibo]

@r0x0r Sorry for the late reply.
I would like to be able to 'unhide' a hidden pywebview window and in the same or subsequent step bring the window to front. But without forcing the window to stay on top - thus allowing the user to bring another window to front again.

So the essential problem I'd like to solve is the 'bring to front' for a pywebview window. The unhiding part is already working.

[r0x0r]

Just to be clear, do you want to implement a splash screen?

…

[tschnibo]

Hey, I used pywebview together with pysimplegui and wanted to enable the user to show the pywebview window when clicked on a button in pysimplegui then, when the pywebview window was closed again, in the background a new pywebview window would be created as "hidden" and shown again when the button is clicked.

This sort of worked, but the window did not come to front but just opened behind the pysimplegui window and other open windows.

Now I moved on to a completely different solution without pywebview and pysimplegui.

I'm sure I'll be using your package another time again - thank you very much!

[r0x0r]

Implemented Cocoa.

[r0x0r]

PR here. I will keep it open for a couple of days, if somebody would like to take a look.
#497