is it possible to control the windows of an external app

Question

I want to take the control of the window

for exmple i want to force to external app to start minimized

I mean when i enter this command

myapp Firefox

Firefox starts but minimized

firefox is not important I mean i want to do it with any gui application

If yes

can any body show me the way?

Answer 1

I am assuming you want to do this via Python since that's what the question is tagged as. The standard windows API allows you to provide start up info when launching a process in which you can specify whether you want the app to start minimized or not.

The only way I could find of doing this via Python was to use the subprocess module ( http://docs.python.org/library/subprocess.html ), and then provide the startupInfo parameter when launching the process. The documentation is very vague on what is expected for that parameter, but I was able to find one example here ( http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread262417.html# ) that I've copied below.

import subprocess

info = subprocess.STARTUPINFO()
info.dwFlags = 1
info.wShowWindow = 0
subprocess.Popen("notepad.exe", startupinfo=info)

This does seem to be windows specific though.

HTH

Answer 2

I've not used it myself, but libwnck has commands to minimize a window, or to move it onto another workspace if you don't want to see it at all. It is probably Linux only, but you already have a Windows solution, so you could switch between the two.

Libwnck info: library.gnome.org

It also has Python bindings. Python-Wnck info: berlios.de

Answer 3

In Unix systems, windows are controlled by the Window manager. Therefore you have the following options

1. Use a window manager that can be externally controlled (e.g. via a socket)

2. Write your own window manager

3. Play with NETWM hints if you are writing the application yourself

I think however that gnome window managers (metacity, sawfish) are generally limited