Programatically handling the Vista Sidebar

Question

Is there an api to bring the vista side bar to the front (Win+Space) programatically and to do the reverse (send it to the back ground).

Answer 1

Probably using SetWindowPos you can change it to be placed the top / bottom of the z-order or even as the top-most window. You would need to find the handle to the sidebar using FindWindow or an application like WinSpy.

But after that something like.

Sets the window on top, but not top most.

SetWindowPos(sidebarHandle, HWND_TOP, 0, 0, 0, 0, SWP_NOMOVE | SWP_NORESIZE);

Sets the window at the bottom.

SetWindowPos(sidebarHandle, HWND_BOTTOM, 0, 0, 0, 0, SWP_NOMOVE | SWP_NORESIZE);

This is my best guess on achieving what you asked, hopefully it helps.

Answer 2

You probably shouldn't do it at all, since such action may annoy the user when executed at the wrong time (95% of cases*), just like stealing focus with a "Yes/No" prompt.

Unless your product's task is to toggle the sidebar of course. ;)

There's no official API for that anyway.

*Purely hypothetical figure