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How can I override the close button to minimize instead for a specific application?

Answer 1

A:

Don't do that. Disable the close button. Provide a minimize button.

Alf P. Steinbach 2010-10-16 00:24:32

I'm not talking about my own application but a third-party application which behaves differently than other applications, which gives a different user experience for that particular application... It's easier to hit "close or alt+f4" than "minimize or win+m", it would be nice to override that close behavior to minimize instead.

TomWij 2010-10-16 00:27:20

@TomWij: Edit your question to provide those requirements, please. Neither nor others who potentially could help you are telepaths, we can't guess what you don't say. And it does make a huge difference in the tehcnical solution (although the Right(TM) solution is as I wrote and as presumably you downvoted: "do not do that").

Alf P. Steinbach 2010-10-16 00:35:15

"For a specific application" and "hook" are already in the question. No need to guess... It's just you.

TomWij 2010-10-16 00:39:54

@TomWij: Re hints already in the question: neither I nor others who could help you are telepaths. Wehen you say you don't know exactly but perhaps a solution could be "something like" a hook, we don't know whether you're guessing wildly about a possible solution, or what. That you were trying to hint something about the problem comes as a surprise. It's much easier to just say it right out.

Alf P. Steinbach 2010-10-16 00:44:10

I'm talking about a kind of hook, not "something like" a hook... It's just you.

TomWij 2010-10-16 00:46:07

@TomVij: I was *quoting* you. Your question still says "something like".

Alf P. Steinbach 2010-10-16 00:47:54

If you don't understand the sentences above it, then why quote it? It's just you.

TomWij 2010-10-16 00:54:10

I disagree, this can be very convenient for programs you usually want to keep in the background (uTorrent, Thunderbird, etc)

ohadsc 2010-10-16 12:43:36

@ohadsc, that's not what the questioner wants to do. He wants to minimize it instead. I think that's an awful thing to do for a close button. For a close button, I see two options: 1) Close the window, but keep the application alive (in the systray) 2) Close the application. For something like thunderbird, I think option 1 fits well.

Johannes Schaub - litb 2010-10-18 15:18:07

@Johannes Schaub - Oh, in the case we are not talking about minimization to the tray, you're absolutely right - that would be annoying

ohadsc 2010-10-18 15:45:54

Answer 2

+1 A:

You can do it in both C++ and C#. To do this, you would have to hook into the applications message loop and override the WM_CLOSE message to WM_MINIMIZE. To hook into any process that's running you can use:

Microsoft Detours (Commercial and not free if I remember correctly) (http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/detours/)
EasyHook (Open source under LGPL) (http://easyhook.codeplex.com/)

I've used EasyHook and I was very satisfied with the results. It gives you really nice features like starting up a process with the hooks attached OR attaching hooks to already running processes. Also, it provides you with both managed(C#) and native hooking libraries. I'd recommend you take a look at it...

Achintya Sharma 2010-10-16 00:48:08

Now that is helpful, amazing to see that there are libraries written for .NET to allow one to do that. So, if I understand correctly: I would have to write a loader which starts the application with a DLL hook attached?

TomWij 2010-10-16 00:52:52

Yes. You can write an exe which would inject your hooking dll (managed or unmanaged) into the target app and start it. EasyHook has fully working examples to get you started :)

Achintya Sharma 2010-10-16 00:56:16

Thank you. :-)` `

TomWij 2010-10-16 00:59:49

Answer 3

+1 A:

For C# this can be done in a very simple manner:

    private void Form1_FormClosing(object sender, FormClosingEventArgs e)
    {
        if (!realClose)
        {
            e.Cancel = true;
            this.WindowState = FormWindowState.Minimized;
        }
    }

Where realClose is a boolean you set to true when you DO want the application to close (e.g. not when the user presses the close button, rather when he uses file -> exit or some such)

ohadsc 2010-10-16 12:39:49

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How can I override the close button to minimize instead for a specific application?

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