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I'm starting to write a simple tool that will add group of tiles similar to the new Windows 10's Start Menu, that will be pinned to our taskbar using their own icons (multiple icons in taskbar).
So far, I've been doing some research related to detecting the taskbar's icon locations, it was not easy, back in Windows XP times, was easier with that taskbar's structure it had back then, with the arrival of Windows 7 (maybe Vista) and newer Windows versions, that taskbar has changed offering a different structure access using MSAA (Microsoft Active Accessibility), so I finally could find the way to get each taskbar's icon location (coordinates, size) however, no icon nor executable information was possible to obtain, but with the name of the icon and its position in the taskbar/screen should be enough, I've been testing it these days in my spare time, just now on two monitors, and found some issues there, hopefully fixable.
TileDock is the name for my new project, and it will be for Windows 10 only, I'm not sure if I can add support for Windows 7, 8 or 8.1, since I got rid of those versions of Windows from my computers at home.
— Ideas that I'm considering to add
- Translucent background pictures for each Tile, as you can see, on mouse cursor's over a tile, it will load its background picture in this group of tiles for some games.
- Animated GIF files, but it might slow it down
Status of the development :
Still in early stages, I switched to Lazarus - FreePascal since C# loads very slow on cold start, even though it might be easier I find it faster a native binary, I don't trust JIT (IL) but Micro$oft just added the .Net Native but only for Windows Store apps.
Currently planned for development:
— Aero Glass support on Windows 10 (like start menu with accent color support)
— Reading Tile groups from JSON files
— Detects its pinned icon in the taskbar, to align correctly
— Settings Dialog Window to create new Tile Groups that we can Pin to the taskbar
— Each group of tiles will be pinned with its own icon
Issues: High DPI support, Touch Support, Multimonitor, Windows 10's TabletMode
Here is a video of the very first approach, it was the one written in C#, as I mentioned, I'm switching to Pascal, my favorite language.
Screen Capture Demo [Video]
If you have any ideas to add, please share it in the comments, I will add them if I consider them feasible, it is always welcome different ideas. But as I mentioned, it is already planned a very basic version, and that will be the starting point, so, just wish me luck for this new project.
Using RocketDock's skins in Windows 11 taskbar
Windows 11's taskbar added a new child window that overrides the older non animated, non centered tasks list child container. I was playing with it, and I could insert my application inside the new taskbar window, just exactly where the old task list was (now hidden in Win11), but mine still shows as background, yaaay. So (as you can see in the picture above), this can be updated when shell messages are detected, like adding or removing windows from taskbar, and adjust its size accordingly. However, since it is a hacky method, and even if it works, it shows some annoying glitches on some circumstances, but I guess they're few. Hopefully, they will be no problem for many of us who likes to have the new Windows 11's taskbar skinned. And about Windows 10 taskbar, I tried something similar, but as it still uses the older task list window, it can't be painted behind them, I tried, and it worked for a moment, then it is repainted and everything (skin) is erased, or sometimes, the area
Windows 11 Start Menu's with animated background
Yesterday Windows 11 was officially launched for general availability, well for PCs compliant to its requirements. After a long time I logged back in here, and saw a previous post which showed an experiment with Windows 10's start menu, unfortunatelly there were many changes to how they handled its windows (aka start menu container), but it seems they just cropped its clickable area and left a child (modern acrylic) window which can't (at least by me) be modified. So, reviving my old program Windows 8 Start Screen Customizer, it just came to my mind that why not use that on Windows 11's Start Menu, at least as its background (animated). And here is how it looks: https://media.giphy.com/media/dUfvXFeNsHtDQ9HrGL/giphy.gif
Experimenting background changer for Windows 10
I was trying to add background picture customization to Windows 10's Start Menu, but it was a failure, because Windows 10 uses a global Modern UI class "Windows.UI.Core.Corewindow" for the entire family of Windows Apps, and annoyingly the Start Menu is also part of that, consequently modifying the Start Menu background picture also affects another Windows Apps, giving them strange behaviours specially while resizing them,making it hard to accomplish what my old Windows 8 Start Screen Customizer was capable of.
This is a snapshot sample of the Start Menu with a translucent background, and since the Start Menu is using Aero Glass, it was impos
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Comments4
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I can see myself using something like this much more than the actual start menu itself. I tend to pin what I need to the taskbar and rarely open the start menu. Something like this would suit my workflow much better.
Hoping you see it through to completion 👍👍
Hoping you see it through to completion 👍👍