fullscreen form

Question

Hi I'm making an application where I need to be sure that even though the user might not be able to see the screen while he/she is using it, doesn't accidently click the minimize, close, click something in the taskbar or anything else that might interupt the application in some way, untill a specific key, like e.g. ESC is pressed, and the program goes back to normal state. My problem is that I don't really know how to make this feature. Either I'm thinking that I have to hide the close, minimize and taskbar in some way (though I havn't been able to find any good information about how to do this in C#) or my second thought is that I have to disable the mouse movement somehow. I've tried to do that with an activity hook on the mouse, but I couldn't get it to actually stop moving, just info on when it did. I really need some good advice on this. Either on how to do the things I've thought of, or some other suggestion I havn't thought of yet. Thanks in advance Peter Damgaard

Scott Lysle · Answer

Peter: Thanks I will take a look. It is an interesting problem. Scott

nilesh rathod · Answer

hi i m nilesh can any one tell me about fullscreen forms

Peter Damgaard · Answer

hey Scott I'll just give the link to what I've found working for me. http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/WinForm_FullScreen.asp I didn't use SendMessage I can't figure out why this guy's code works and mine doesn't - it's quite odd

Scott Lysle · Answer

Peter: I am glad that you found something that worked for you; did you end up using the SendMessage approach or was it just some minor issue in the code? I'd be interesting in knowing what you found out for future reference. Thanks Scott

Peter Damgaard · Answer

Hey I must have been doing something wrong as you suggest though I can't really figure out what... I searched on the web and I've found this other guy's code about doing a fullscreen application and with some minor adjustments it worked on my application. Even though it seems like it is doing what I have already done my old code didn't work and this did. - quite odd. But I can't thank you enough for the help you have given me it is very much appreciated. /Peter

Scott Lysle · Answer

Peter: This is unusual I have tested what we have discussed as a 2005 application on both XP and Vista and I get a full screen cover that blocks it all out (including the taskbar) and I do not have my taskbar set to autohide. There was an issue with the taskbar and this sort of behavior in 2003 applications and the work around was to manually set the control box minimize button maximize button Stay on Top and so forth. There is also a clunky way of minimizing the taskbar using a call through the user32.dll's message sending interface; and we might be done to looking at that. One last question have you put your executable on another machine and tried it; I would like to know if the behavior shows up on another box (as I mentioned I tested on two with two different Operating Systems (XP service pack 2 and the released version of Vista Ultimate). Both machines have .NET 1.0 1.1 2.0 and 3.0 not that I think that really matters.

Peter Damgaard · Answer

I'm using 2005 and windows XP. I'm trying to solve the problem with some kind of mousehook but I can't get it to work.

Scott Lysle · Answer

Peter: Are you using 2003 or 2005? Also what operating system are you running?

Peter Damgaard · Answer

But then I still have the problem with the program not reacting on the mouseclicks in that black space... :S

Scott Lysle · Answer

Peter: Oh I set the opacity to .7 just so you can see the blank space where the taskbar goes. Just delete the line setting the opacity.

Peter Damgaard · Answer

Thank you that got rid of the taskbar. But now there's just a black space where the taskbar was before where the program doesn't react to any mouse buttons being clicked. Can I maximize over that space anyway? I've tried with WindowState = FormWindowState.Maximized; but that doesn't work. Or is there any way I can be noticed when the mouse is pressed in that area? It would be nice if I could maximize over it somehow because it looks a little ugly with that black space at the bottom of the screen. One more thing: I don't quite understand the purpose of the opacity at the moment it just makes the application look transperant - am I doing something wrong? Thanks Peter

Scott Lysle · Answer

Peter: I was not seeing the taskbar when I tested the response but I think using this will cover it. I set the form opacity to .7 to confirm the taskbar was not visible: -- Add in this reference then add the two dll imports under the class declaration. using System.Runtime.InteropServices; // Dynamic Link Library Imports [ DllImport ( user32.dll )] private static extern int FindWindow( string cls string wndwText); [ DllImport ( user32.dll )] private static extern int ShowWindow( int hwnd int cmd); public Form1() { InitializeComponent(); // set opacity to .7 so you can see the taskbar is gone this .Opacity = .7; ShowWindow(FindWindow( Shell_TrayWnd  null ) 0); } private void Form1_KeyPress( object sender KeyPressEventArgs e) { if (e.KeyChar == 'a' ) { ShowWindow(FindWindow( Shell_TrayWnd  null ) 1); this .Dispose(); } }

Peter Damgaard · Answer

Wow thanks that sure did the trick. Or atleast some of it there's still one problem left. while I'm in fullscreen mode the taskbar is still showing - how can I get that to disappear while I'm running in fullscreen mode? Or is this even possible if you have the Keep taskbar on top of other windows property enabled? There must be some way to get passed that since e.g. Microsoft Powerpoint and Open Office Impress can be displayed in fullscreen without the taskbar. Thanks in advance Peter

Scott Lysle · Answer

I'm not at all sure that it is a good idea to do these things but if you create a form and set the FormBorderStyle property to none set the WindowState property to Maximized and set the KeyPreview property to True you will see a borderless form that will consume your entire screen. If you write a keypress event handler e.g. private void Form1_KeyPress( object sender KeyPressEventArgs e) { if (e.KeyChar == 'a' ) { this .Dispose(); } } you can terminate your application by in this case clicking on the keyboard 'a' button. If you were to do something like that you might consider throwing up a status message and maybe a progress bar to show that your application is doing something else it will look like the machine locked up. Still and all if the user holds down ctrl+Esc they are still going to be able to get to the taskbar and other applications and can terminate your application from there.