App that can send programs to the tray?

Anyone know of a program that allows you to take app's that are
on the taskbar and hide the app in the taskbar, but show the
icon in the tray? I would like to use it for app's that don't have
the tray feature coded into them...so I don't know if it is even
possible.

Would this be easy to make?

yes, it is possible. i don´t know of a pre-made program, but:
are you a programmer? (c/delphi, some experience with winXXXX?)

then i can tell you how...

I'm a programmer skilled mostly in
VB and PHP.

I've worked w/ C++ but only know basic
things: writing functions, write/reading files,
arrays, and general programming logic.

Where would I start?

get used to the windows ShellAPI and other low-level programming. do you know how handles and processes work in windows? this would help alot...

the "abstract" way:

- start the application using createprocess() -> you get a handle to the process (ProcessInformation.dwProcessHandle)
- get the Main Window´s handle from this.

you app will then:
- hide the application´s taskbar button: SetWindowLong()
- go to the system tray: Shell_NotifyIcon()
- setup a menu for clicking on the system tray icon
- "sendmessage()" (and other functions for IPC) to the application´s main form.

do you understand this?

It seems that this is going to have to be done in C++, am I
correct? I don't know much about handles, etc. Just that if you
get a handle to a window, you can change some things about it.

It seems like my program would have to start other programs I
would like to hide. Is there a way I could make it so that right
clicking on my tray icon would bring up a menu of the programs in
the taskbar and another menu for programs that I hid?

If not, I guess that'd be ok...

If I'm using this function,
BOOL CreateProcess(
LPCTSTR lpApplicationName, // name of executable module
LPTSTR lpCommandLine, // command line string
LPSECURITY_ATTRIBUTES lpProcessAttributes, // SD
LPSECURITY_ATTRIBUTES lpThreadAttributes, // SD
BOOL bInheritHandles, // handle inheritance option
DWORD dwCreationFlags, // creation flags
LPVOID lpEnvironment, // new environment block
LPCTSTR lpCurrentDirectory, // current directory name
LPSTARTUPINFO lpStartupInfo, // startup information
LPPROCESS_INFORMATION lpProcessInformation // process information
);

What parameters are required besides the filename?

Also, I'm a little rusty w/ pointers... how would I go about
making one?
the parameter is prefixed w/ lp. Is it supposed to be of long
type or string, or I'm I just not understanding the terminology?

string strFileName = "C:\myprogram.exe";
string *ptrFileName;
ptrFileName = &strFileName;

i can´t tell you all the details due to lack of time, but maybe i can point you in the right direction.

all variables in the windows api that start with "lp" are AFAIK "long pointer" (C: far pointer)

i only use delphi for programming at the moment, so there is not much i can tell you about how to do it in C

for using pointers, look in the "C" forum here, we had an interesting discussion just yesterday...

do you have a "string" class for c++? i don´t think there is a string type in C. but i don´t know for sure.

if i remember correctly (it is some months that i did not use C)


createprocess(null,filename,....)

i recommend searching the web (ask mr google: "windows programming how to use createprocess")

if you know Delphi AND C, you can look at http://delphi.about.com and translate it to C. if you only know C, search http://www.microsoft.com for code examples (and download the SDK docs there!) and http://community.borland.com

Well thanks for the help! I'll read up on it.

I accomplished some of what I wanted to do with VB.

2 areas I'm concerned about are:

How do you get only the applications that are
shown on the taskbar? (hwnd's)

And, how do you get a handle of a console window?

Any further help would be appreciated!!

hmmm. not 100% sure. i think for a window to appear in the taskbar, the following has to be true:

- it is a main window (parent is 0, the desktop)
- some parameters must not be set; eg. getWindowLong() must not contain the glx_toolwin parameter (that i use for removing it from the taskbar )

this should be documented in the windows SDK, if not, you´ll have to do some tests. but this can be quite many since i am not sure of parameter combinations either.

maybe you want to write an automatic program that changes it´s own parameters, waits for a second or two, makes a screenshot and tests if the taskbar has changed. (just an idea..) then you could do all permutations in probably a few hours without attending

a console process also needs to have a window handle just like any other window too... maybe write a program that uses EnumWindows() to find all windows and compare the title bar´s Caption.

this url tells you how to find the executable name from the main window handle, then you can iterate through all windows with EnumWindows() and check the executable name against the program you are looking for...

http://www.mooremvp.freeserve.co.uk...amed_tip038.htm

hope this helps.

M

This time I got an h_wnd when I checked the window titles.

The program was already running. So I found it by typing in
what I wanted to find for a title. All that happened when I tried
to hide the console window was that it moved from being first on
the taskbar, to being last. Any ideas why?

sorry, no idea...

Well thank you for all your help.

Maybe someone else will know =)

App to send any other app to the system tray. enjoy!

URL

Or start the app from a shortcut set to run minimized.

The problem with that is the app still resides on the task bar and not in the system tray.

Trayit lets you specify which apps to run in the tray as well as lets you temporally send an app to the tray by right clicking on the "x". It's a nifty app I use it all the time.