Create a windowless window for b/g images

[sshrum]

Didn't get any hits in the general support area...so I'm posting here.

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I used to keep different images on my 3 screens by using XP's active desktop.

I now run Vista.

I want to make a util that will allow me to select and display (stretch) a picture (gif,jpg,bmp,etc) like a background graphic....but on a one-to-one relationship. Vista takes the selected background and runs them on all the screens (one-to-all).

I already have code from Fisofo that will return the number of monitors and their positions...I just need a way to create the unselectable, untitled window to put the graphic into.

Any ideas? Possible?

TIA

[Zedna]

Answer is using some combination of styles and extended styles in GUICreate()

$gui = GuiCreate("Test",400,300,-1,-1,$WS_POPUP,BitOr($WS_EX_TOPMOST,$WS_EX_TOOLWINDOW))

And then standard GUICtrlCreatePic()

[sshrum]

Thanks for the info. I'll try this later tonight.

One other thing...if you happen to know:

Since I'm covering the 'true' background with mine, I'd still want right clicks on my b/g to still pull up the popup menu for display settings...possible?

TIA

EDIT:

1. That code does create a windowless window but it's on-top of all the other windows. What do I need to do to send the window to the back?

2. I can only seem to get 1 window to be created at a time. Is it possible to generate x number of these with one AutoIT run? (Since I have 3 monitors, I'll need at least three windows...I'd like to set this up for more depending on the number of active monitors that are detected).

Edited February 22, 2007 by sshrum

[Zedna]

1. That code does create a windowless window but it's on-top of all the other windows. What do I need to do to send the window to the back?

Look at my second example (it's without STAYONTOP style )...

[sshrum]

Sweet...this is working...kinda This is still alpha and it lacks any true desktop functionality but I hardly ever use the desktop anymore (I have too many windows open to see the dang thing most of the time)

I've attached 2 screen shots of my desktop with my 'backgrounds' app running. One is in a 1x1 mode (1 image to each monitor) and the other is in panoramic mode (1 image stretched across all monitors)

Here's a shot (off my camera phone) of my panoramic desktop (1 image stretched across all monitors).

Original image from deviantart.com: A Dreamy World (widescreen)

I'm not sure I'm going to make a public project out of this as without any desktop-esk functionality, all I'll get back is bitching.

As you have noticed, there are no shortcuts displayed on the desktop (this is fine with me as I never use the icons on the desktop, I disable them anyways). If this is not an issue for you and you have a multi-monitor setup and want to run different backgrounds, drop me a line. I'll email you the code.

OAN, if anyone wants to help work in the desktop-esk functionality, I'm open to that and actually hosting the project.

Nuff said.

The reason my flanking images below are cut is because my center monitor is running a slightly higher res...if I set it down to ####x1024, the images on all the monitors would line up height-wise. This is just how Windows draws its desktop out.

Edited February 24, 2007 by sshrum