Child window elements become disassociated from parent

[qwert]

I have a GUI that consists of a PNG “backdrop” image, created with:

$mainGUI = GUICreate("Control", $cWidth, $cHeight, $cX, $cY, $WS_POPUP, BitOR($WS_EX_TOPMOST, $WS_EX_LAYERED, $WS_EX_TOOLWINDOW))
SetBitmap($cGUI, $cImage, 255)
GUICtrlSetState($cGUI, $GUI_DISABLE)

.

Then, to get “full effect buttons” (i.e., with theme colors, mouseover effects, etc.) on top of the image, I create a child window using:

$buttonGUI = GUICreate("", $width, $height, 0, 0, $WS_POPUP, BitOR($WS_EX_MDICHILD, $WS_EX_LAYERED), $mainGUI)
$sampleButton = GUICtrlCreateButton("Button", 100, 60, 70, 24)

.

99% of the time, my WinMove($mainGUI) calls move everything together as a unit (parent+child). But, occasionally—especially after Win8 recovers from Sleep Mode—the coordinates of the child elements become disassociated from the parent GUI. The buttons, for example, do move when the parent window is moved, but they have their own set of coordinates ... usually off to the left of the parent GUI by three or four hundred pixels.  So, if have these questions:

 

Is there a surefire way to bind child windows to the parent?

 

Also, is there a better way to display buttons on the parent GUI?  IOW, other than creating a child window to hold them. When I place them directly on the parent GUI, they operate, but they’re not visible.

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

 

 

[qwert]

In my continuing search for a solution, I found the following point in a reader comment on an msdn page:

 

SetWindowPlacement(...) should be used by application whenever they wish to restore a window to a previous persisted state. This is because this function will correct inaccurate coordinates. The net result is that applications and their windows can avoid being obscured by changes in the taskbar or other non-workspace areas of the display. SetWindowPos, for example, will not protect against this.

 

My interpretation is that this approach would require full monitoring of the child window using a style structure (using DllStructCreate and _WinAPI_GetWindowPlacement).  But, before I dive into that unfamiliar territory, I'd like to ask:

1.  Does this sound correct?

2.  Is there a simpler alternative that would cause the WinMove() statements to work properly?

 

[MikahS]

Let windows do it for you with the:

_WinAPI_SetParent($buttonGUI, $mainGUI)

That should let you move both with one:

WinMove

call to the main GUI.

EDIT: edited solution

Edited August 4, 2014 by MikahS

[qwert]

Thanks for your response.

At this point, I'm willing to try anything.

But how is this different from the parent/child relation specified when the child GUI is created?

 

[MikahS]

It uses Windows to make the parent - child association.