Borderless Taskbar items: Using a right click menu (VB6)

Question

Even when BorderStyle is set to 0, it is possible to force a window to show up on the taskbar either by turning on the ShowInTaskbar property or by using the windows api directly: SetWindowLong Me.hwnd, GWL_EXSTYLE, GetWindowLong(Me.hwnd, Win.GWL_EXSTYLE) Or Win.WS_EX_APPWINDOW. However, such taskbar entries lack a right-click menu in their taskbar entry. Right-clicking them does nothing instead of bringing up a context menu. Is there a way, to attach a standard or custom handler to it?

Answer 1

Without a hack, I think you're going to be stuck here, I'm sorry to say. When you set the VB6 borderless properties, you inherently disable the control menu. The control menu (typically activated by right-clicking the title bar of a window or left-clicking the icon in the upper left) is what's displayed when you right-click a window in the task bar.

Now, if you're in the mood to hack, you might be able to "simulate" the behavior in such a way that the user doesn't know the difference. I got the idea from this message thread on usenet.

Basically, it sounds like you may be able to hack it by using two forms. One form is minimized right away, and becomes your "stub" in the task bar. The other form is the one you're currently designing (which we'll call the "main" form). The stub form is what actually loads and displays your main form.

The stub form isn't borderless, and must not deactivate the control menu. It is positioned off screen and at the smallest possible size. You'll respond to its form-level events, and then use those to communicate the appropriate behaviors to the borderless form.

That's the general gist of the hack. If I wasn't at work right now, I'd whip up a simple VB6 project and see if I could get it to work for you.