disable Aero Snap (wpf)

Question

Is it possible to disable the automatic window-docking feature of windows 7?

Answer 1

In Ease of Access in control panel, choose

Make it easier to focus on tasks

and tick

Prevent windows from being automatically arranged when moved to the edge of the screen

Answer 2

I don't have a Windows 7 box here, so I can't test this, but here's what I would try:

1- Create a test form and override the WndProc
2- Test and log specific messages pertaining to Size, Position and WindowState changing.
3- Determine if the messages sent to the window when docked are a combination of Size/Position/WindowState or if there is another, new Windows 7 message (5 minutes of searching didn't reveal anything to me.)
4- Once you have the messages, check to see if there is a "unique" case that is occurring.
5- Modify your code to accommodate that unique case.

If no one else comes up with anything, I might give this a whirl at home this weekend.

Answer 3

I hope in your weekend :-)

Answer 4

If you are giving example of "Sticky Notes" of Win7, you may have noticed that it does NOT have standard window border. On that as a base, I can only tell you that there's no direct way of doing this except you set ResizeMode="NoResize" and handling the resize behavior manually. Following is a very basic, non-professional solution that i've quickly created to get you started, but you can append more functions if you like :)

<Window
    x:Class="WpfApplication1.Window1"
    x:Name="window"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    Title="Window1"
    Width="300"
    Height="300"
    ResizeMode="NoResize"
    WindowStyle="None"
    AllowsTransparency="True"
    Background="Transparent"
    WindowState="Maximized">

    <Window.Resources>
        <x:Array
            x:Key="TextBlockList"
            Type="{x:Type TextBlock}">
            <TextBlock
                Text="○ Resize Horizontally by dragging right grip" />
            <TextBlock
                Text="○ Resize Vertically by dragging bottom grip" />
            <TextBlock
                Text="○ Move Horizontally by dragging left grip" />
            <TextBlock
                Text="○ Move Verticallyby dragging top grip" />
        </x:Array>
    </Window.Resources>

    <Grid>
        <Grid.RowDefinitions>
            <RowDefinition
                Height="Auto" />
            <RowDefinition
                Height="{Binding Height, Mode=OneWay, ElementName=window}" />
            <RowDefinition
                Height="Auto" />
        </Grid.RowDefinitions>
        <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
            <ColumnDefinition
                Width="Auto" />
            <ColumnDefinition
                Width="{Binding Width, Mode=OneWay, ElementName=window}" />
            <ColumnDefinition
                Width="Auto" />
        </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>

        <GridSplitter
            Grid.Column="1"
            Grid.Row="1"
            HorizontalAlignment="Left"
            MinWidth="5" />

        <GridSplitter
            Grid.Column="1"
            Grid.Row="1"
            HorizontalAlignment="Right"
            MinWidth="5" />

        <GridSplitter
            Grid.Column="1"
            Grid.Row="1"
            VerticalAlignment="Top"
            MinHeight="5"
            ResizeDirection="Rows"
            HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" />

        <GridSplitter
            Grid.Column="1"
            Grid.Row="1"
            VerticalAlignment="Bottom"
            MinHeight="5"
            ResizeDirection="Rows"
            HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" />

        <Border
            Grid.Column="1"
            Grid.Row="1"
            Background="{DynamicResource {x:Static SystemColors.WindowBrushKey}}"
            Margin="5">

            <Grid x:Name="root">
                <ItemsControl
                    ItemsSource="{StaticResource TextBlockList}" />
            </Grid>

        </Border>

    </Grid>
</Window>

You can even make a control (basically a panel) that can be resized and moved within its parent canvas. Now this control can be filled into a transparent maximized window. This'll give you an illusion of your control being a window that doesn't respond to 'Window Snap' and will not dock!

Hope this helps.
Regards,
Mihir Gokani