[SOLVED] take over system focus

[sadams54]

I am working on another project and need a little help.

My program is running in the background all the time but I want to interrupt a user no matter what he is doing or working on and show a message from my program on the screen on top of anything else including full screen apps. I have no clue how to make this happen and my research is obviously not going well. Any ideas that work?

[thatbruce]

There are several, if not many, ways to do this. I think the most elegant from the users point of view is using the dbus Notify demon.

[cogier]

This may help.

Public Sub Form_Open()

  Wait 5
  Shell "notify-send IMPORTANT! 'IMPORTANT message'"
  Message("IMPORTANT\n\nImportant message", "OK")

End

[vuott]

If your program is a command-line interface (CLI), then I would proceed as follows:

1) activate a Graphics Component anyway (for example: gb.gui.qt);

2) place, where needed in the code, the display of "Message" window.

Simple explanatory example:

Public Sub Main()

  Wait 4
  
  Message.Warning("Message !")

End

[BruceSteers]

You need to find the active screen. i find the best way is with the Mouse.ScreenX, Mouse.ScreenY properties.

By default you cannot force a Message box to appear on a selected screen (by default Message only appears on Screens[0])

There are ways around it.
you can either open a custom message Form moved to the required screen.

Or i made a hack that will move any gambas Modal window or you can set a list of window names like FMessage (Message) FInput (InputBox)

See the attached program.

It creates and starts a Timer just before the ShowModal function is called. then the Timer force moves the active Message window to the desired screen or window depending on how it is set

Normal (normal gambas mode, always Screens[0])
Same Screen (opens on the screen the mouse is on)
Same Window (stacked at top-left) (attaches to top-left of active window)
Same Window (centered) (centered on active window)

To use it in your own prog just put the Form.class in your .src folder and compile then set the modal mode as I have in the example.

[BruceSteers]

The first method is to make your notification happen by your own Form popping up.

You set the following...

MyNotifyForm.Stacking = Window.Above
MyNotifyForm.TopOnly = True

Then when MyNotifyForm opens it should be on top of any other window.

[sadams54]

I tested out some of this and it works fine except for where it is really needed. None seem to pop up a notification over another application that is running full screen such as VLC or totem. I need to be able to put a message up even over a full screen app.

[BruceSteers]

Odd , because i used this simple code..

Public Sub OpenTestWindow()

  Dim w As Window = New Window
  w.W = 300
  w.H = 200
  w.Move(Screens[1].X + 100, 100)
  w.Stacking = Window.Above
  w.TopOnly = True

  w.Show

End

if SMPlayer or vlc is running on Screens[1] then the window opens on top, perfectly visible.

[thatbruce]

The notify (dbus) method will. That's it job. If it doesn't work then something is awry with the distribution you are using.
Note Cogier's code above may need to be adjusted depending on what notification daemon you have and are running.*
In a terminal type "notify-send --help" which should give you the syntax needed.

* The notification daemon is a user optioned thing set at login. For example here the distro notifier is some kde thingo which I dislike, so I use dunst instead which is predictable and simple. Others on this machine use the kde one, so just beware of this if you are in a multiuser situation.

b

[sadams54]

I will give another try to the code bruce gave. But the mention of KDE made me cringe because now I am wondering if I have to worry about what desktop is being used. Something I had not considered.