VDF-GUIdance - Panel gets covered by windows taskbar

Panel gets covered by windows taskbar

by Wil van Antwerpen

Summary

This article explains how to fix the problem that can occur if you have a view with a dbform object and a selection list near the bottom of the screen. Popping up the selection list will locate the panel in a way that the buttons are underneath the windows taskbar.
This only applies to VDF4/VDF5/VDF6. This behaviour is fixed in VDF7.

No Files Available

Date Created:

09/03/2000

Date Updated:

09/03/2000

Author:

Wil van Antwerpen

Company:

Antwise Solutions

by Wil van Antwerpen

The autolocate logic that Data-access uses doesn't take the taskbar at the bottom of your screen into its calculations. As a result of this popping up a selectionlists from a dbform object at the bottom of the screen will display the lookup with its buttons covered by the statusbar and/or the windows taskbar.

The problem is in the global function GUIScreen_Size, right now it uses the API-function GetSystemMetrics. With the parameters SM_CYSCREEN and SM_CXSCREEN. This retrieves the full width and the height of the screen. An alternative for this is the API-function call SystemParametersInfo. It does exactly the same, but returns the full size of the workarea.

Dropping the following code into the top of your code will get rid of this most annoying problem. While it doesn't exactly replace the original function it does get called instead of it, because of the delegation path.

*WvA: 02-02-2000

External_Function vWin32_SystemParametersInfo "SystemParametersInfoA" User32.dll ;
dword uiAction dword uiParam Pointer pvParam dword fWinini Returns Integer

Define vSPI_GETWORKAREA for 48

This is a replacement for the GUIScreen_Size. The normal function uses the
GetSystemMetrics to get the workable screensize. The systemmetric API call doesn't
care about the size of your taskbar. The result of this is that panels that
are auto_located on your screen suddenly run off the screen even with plenty of
space around them.

Function GUIScreen_Size For Desktop Returns Integer
Local Integer iTop iLeft iRight iBottom bSuccess iHeight iWidth iSize
Local String sRect
Local Pointer lpsRect
ZeroType tRect To sRect
GetAddress of sRect To lpsRect
Move (vWin32_SystemParametersInfo(vSPI_GETWORKAREA, 0, lpsRect, 0)) To bSuccess
If bSuccess Begin
GetBuff From sRect At tRect.top to iTop
GetBuff From sRect At tRect.left to iLeft GetBuff From sRect At tRect.bottom to iBottom
GetBuff From sRect At tRect.right to iRight
Move (iBottom - iTop) To iHeight
Move (iRight - iLeft) To iWidth
End
Function_Return ((iHeight*65536) + iWidth)
End_Function GUIScreen_Size

While I have this code in my dfallent for your convience this package has been put in a file called vAutoLocateFix.pkg (Netscape users: Press the shift-key while clicking on the link). Following is some code of how to include this in the order entry workspace example.

Object ProgramWorkspace is a Workspace
Set WorkspaceName to CURRENT$WORKSPACE
Set ModuleName to 'Order'
Set HelpName to 'OrdEntry.hlp'
End_Object

Use Help_Ids.inc Developer should provide this file of help context links.
Use Std_Help.pkg
Use vAutoLocateFix.pkg <=== this is it
/* DO NOT REMOVE THIS LINE: IDE GENERATED CODE WILL GO HERE */
Start_UI
.

This code is tested on windows 98 and NT4.