System tray is under control

Access to the Start button

I want to tell you how to get access to the Windows Start button and the Windows tray bar. The tray bar is a special window in the system with a Shell_TrayWnd class name. What does it mean? It means that you can find this windows using FindWindow API function. Here is the example:

HWND  hTrayBar;
hTrayBar= FindWindow("Shell_TrayWnd",NULL);

After that the hTrayBar variable will contain a handle to the system tray window. The Start button is a button on the system tray window. To find it we can use FindWindowEx API function:

HWND  hButton;
hButton= FindWindowEx(hTrayBar, 0,"Button", NULL);

You can show or hide Start button like any other window control in your application. For example:

HWND  hTrayBar, hButton;
            
hTrayBar= FindWindow("Shell_TrayWnd",NULL);
hButton= FindWindowEx(hTrayBar, 0,"Button", NULL);

// hide the Start button
ShowWindow(hButton, SW_HIDE);
// wait for 50 msec
Sleep(50);
// show  the start button
ShowWindow(hButton, SW_SHOW);
Sleep(50);

To show or hide a control we use ShowWindow function. A first parameter is a handle of control you want to show or hide. A second parameter is a SW_SHOW to show control or SW_HIDE to hide control. More information can be found on MSDN WEB site

Up and Down

Next example shows us how to force the Start button to get up and down:

hTaskBar= FindWindow("Shell_TrayWnd",NULL);
hButton= GetWindow(hTaskBar, GW_CHILD);
MainMenu=LoadMenu(hInstance, (LPCTSTR)IDC_STARTENABLE);

SetParent(hButton, 0);

int i;
int toppos=GetSystemMetrics(SM_CYSCREEN)-23;

// Set top-left window position
SetWindowPos(hButton, HWND_TOPMOST, 4, toppos, 50, 20, SWP_SHOWWINDOW);
UpdateWindow(hButton);
	
// the button gets up
for (i=0; i<50; i++)
{
 toppos=toppos-4;
 SetWindowPos(hButton, HWND_TOPMOST, 4, toppos, 50, 20, SWP_SHOWWINDOW);
 Sleep(15);// wait for 15 milsec
}

// the button gets down
for (i=50; i>0; i--)
{
 toppos=toppos+4;
 SetWindowPos(hButton, HWND_TOPMOST, 4, toppos, 50, 20, SWP_SHOWWINDOW);
 Sleep(15);// wait for 15 milsec
}

SetParent(hButton, hTaskBar);

Source codes can be found in attachment to the article.

Best regards Michael Flenov

Download Attachment

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