How to make window larger than desktop?

Any reason Full Screen Mode (F11) will not do what you want?

sysandprog: Window must be resized based on current screen resolution. Idea is to flexibly, dynamically, easily, and on the fly make a window larger than the screen height.

coral47: Please study the the examples which specify a need for a window greater than screen size. E.g.: go to msdn.microsoft.com, type "getwindowtext" into the box at top right, hit Go. From what you see next, here are couple tables & a conclusion to explain one need further:


Table 1: TABLE OF TOP-PART HEIGHTS IN AN IE MSDN LIBRARY WINDOW

  Pixel-Range  Pixels      Inches(roughly)      Description
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.     0 -  18      19          1/4              IE Title bar
2.   19 -  46      28          1/4              IE Menu bar
3.   47 -  68      22          1/4              MSDN "Microsoft.home" & "Site Map" links
4.   69 - 111     43          7/16            MSDN logo
5. 112 - 135     24          1/4              MSDN "MSDN Home" toolbar
6. 136 - 158     23          1/4              MSDN "Welcome to the MSDN Library" bar  
                    ----
   Total size  159


Table 2: TABLE OF TOP-PART HEIGHTS AS A PERCENTAGE OF SCREEN RESOLUTION/SIZE

Columns:
A - Size of top-part as a % of screen-pixel height (=159-pixels/Column-B)
B - Screen-height in Pixels (height part of the screen resolution)
C - Size in Inches of top-part (measured roughly), (compare against a Viewable Screen Height of 10.5 inches on a 19" monitor)

Note: Table shows screen resolution heights of my video card (NVIDIA GeForce MX/MX 400)

 A      B          C
16   1024     1 11/16
17    960      1 3/4
18    900      1 7/8
18    864      2
21    768      2 3/16
22    720      2 5/16
27    600      2 3/4      
34    468      3 1/2



CONCLUSION

The msdn Library, essential for any windows programmer, is annoying in its use of inescapable frames. Especially those that take up valuable & precious screen real-estate by displaying logos etc. that don't add to but instead detract from productivity. It's like having a permanent pointless banner across your screen: who would want their enjoyment & productivity messed with like that?

The space taken up to the bottom of the item 6 of Table 1 represents AT LEAST between 16 and 34 % of the screen height, as Table 2 shows. For most people the percentages will be greater: Since the figures represent an IE window WITH NO TOOLBARS but most people DO have 1 or more toolbars. The lower the screen resolution and/or the smaller the monitor, the bigger & more in-your-face the issue becomes.

My IE is set up for viewing the info needed using as much as possible the full screen height.

So what I want to do, for the msdn site, is to size the IE window to the screen height PLUS 150 or so pixels. Then to move the window UP 150 pixels to get the MSDN logos etc. UP out of the way so I get to use the full screen height to see what I need to see, not the useless annoying space-hogging stuff I'm forced to put up with.

When I need to read on the screen, the more useful info I can get on the screen, the better my speed, productivity, comfort, enjoyment, and results of learning & work & play on the computer...

-----------
I have come up with an alternate solution, but i'ts not as ideal or elegant as the one proposed here. And with this solution I can navigate the library using the left frame which at least is more useful.

If there is no current solution, it begs the question: Must software be made to serve us, or must we bow to software's undue restrictions and idiosyncrasies in a computer world that's otherwise advancing?

I'll even accept a hack as an answer. Any IDA Pro users here? lol.

Way over my head. I will be quite now.    : /

hit f11 when IE is open, only the title bar should show
Billy

sorry, didnt read all the way, coral already said that and you know it already

New Info:

Win 98 USE TO programmatically allow a window larger than the desktop height. I knew it did, my memory told me it did. Today I just confirmed this fact on an older computer that hasn't been on the Internet in over a year.

So, some windows "update", and/or the unofficial windows update (http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4131.html   Unofficial Windows98 SE Service Pack 2.1a) caused Win98 to refuse to allow the larger size!

Can anyone pinpoint the file, registry key, or other alteration, so I can revert to the old way? Once such a change can be pinpointed, perhaps it can be extrapolated to Win2000 & XP...

With downgrades such as these (other downgrades include: no VRAMDIR-type RAM drive, more system windows are non-resizable ...), I'm afraid to move to XP...

Points upped to 225.

Well I got my membership soon after I wrote the above. Points upped to 500 now.

New info: on that older computer, I can only make the Explorer & browser windows larger than desktop.
If you can at least solve how to enlarge IE windows, points will be granted. It's not a registry issue it seems (I tried a really old registry).

I think this a security feature that Microsoft added at some point in the past to avoid a certain browser exploit -- a site would open a new window and position it in such a way that there was no obvious way to close it or drag it (that is the situation when the caption off of the top of the screen).   I recall needing to learn the Alt+F4 trick and the alt+spacebar, M trick to get out of that mess after "accidentally" surfing to some unsavory sites).

Note that there is no contraint to making a window WIDER than the screen.  Just set it to "normalized" size and drag it toward the left until part of it is off screen (for instance, the leftmost column of an EE page).  Then grab the right-hand side and drag it to increase the width.

There is no exploit that involves a window being too wide, so IE/WIndows soes not constrain it.

The way to make more browser vertical content available is to set the options to use a small icon toolbar and get rid of all toolbars (such as Links, etc) that you don't need and also get rid of the google bar, yahoo bar, adobe bar, and every other toolbar that your wife allows to be installed when you are not looking.  It is possible to remove the remaining minimal small bar (back, forward, refresh, etc) onto the same line as the menu or the addresss bar.   You can even put a very short version of the address bar on that same line.   The result:  The title bar, one line of menu and tools, and the content.

You can also go to the control panel and change fonts and the thickness of captions, etc to minimize the height of these "always present" overhead items.

-- Dan

Sorry, didn't mean to abandon the post. Will post useful info within a week..

Specifics:
==========

~~ Demo ~~
The lower the screen resolution, the more dramatic the demo. E.g. 800x600 vs. 1600x1200.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=182569 --> has a big logo etc. not permanently hogging the screen since it's unframed. Free & clear, easy to read.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/winui/winui/windowsuserinterface/windowing/windows/windowreference/windowfunctions/movewindow.asp --> space-hijacker. Other issues also like load time compared to other sites & Google's cache of the page & the no-longer-there mirror at http:/winehq.com/wine/WinDoc/msdn.

Dramatic illustration (as of 2006-06-05): http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/dhtml/overview/xpsp2compat.asp

IE 6.0 -- display redirects within a second from free & friendly to caged & abominable.

Opera 8.54 -- a bit more flexible: quick & easy disable of Javascript maintains a clean display. Or 'Right-click -> Frame -> Open in new page' removes all but the annoying "Welcome to the MSDN Library" frame (& then a re-do of 'Open in new page' just redirects to the original frames).

Firefox 1.504 -- even with Javascript turned on, gives the page & nothing but the page. But, view through the normal channels to the framed pages that IE always redirects to, then 'Right-click -> This frame -> Open Frame in New Window' helps not at the site.


~~ Email query about De-framing the MSDN ~~
IE5 has a tool suite which also works in IE6: http://cws.internet.com/article/2223-3033.htm  "E5 Web Accessories"
So, MS had worked toward being user-friendly, but in the end did an about-face, apparently to force frames down our throats if we simply want to read the MSDN!: The "Open Frame in New Window" part of the tool now works on OTHER framed sites, but not on the MS site!

IE Booster" (now part of "Site Inspector") also has a frame-breaker. A 2003-03-18 email exchange with IE Booster's author speaks for itself:

-->From me >
Re: 'IEB: Frame: Open in New Window' & 'IEB: Frame: Open in This Window'.  It doesnt work on my computer for the msdn web site (msdn.microsoft.com)

Ive spent quite a bit of time trying for a solution, even Opera, but no luck; i have to manually do "view source" then cut and paste links to open the frame in its own window. If it can be done manually, surely it can be done by IE booster?

Help! :((  Example: go to msdn.microsoft.com, type in "keyboardlayout" in search field, an then in the results page click on the third link. That takes u to a frames page. All i want to do is read the info in a full window, its abhorrently frustrating having the top third of the screen taken up by "Microsoft" logo.
<
-->Author's Reply >
Hi R...

I know the problem you describe. But the bad news is: there is no way to solve this besides deactivating _JavaScript. And if you did so, probably the whole MS site wont work again.

The pages contain scripts which query if the displayed page is in its own frame:

 if( self == top ){ location = "/library/en-us/wcesdkr/htm/_wcesdk_Win32_GetKeyboardLayoutName.asp";}
and if so the location of the page is set new.
 
We wanted to provide a feature in the new Version of IE Booster which comes soon, but it unfortunately didn't work.
 
Sorry!
Have a great day!
 
Best
Joern
<

~~ IE Security settings ~~
In IE 6 for XPsp2: Tools -> Internet Options -> Security -> Custom Level -> Miscellaneous
"Allow scripting of Internet Explorer Webbrowser control"
"Allow script-initiated windows without size or position constraints"
Despite the encouraging wording of these options, I couldn't, after hitting "enable", open a window taller than screen height. I tried both Javascript window.open & the MoveWindow API.


~~ Window Restrictions & the Windows Registry ~~
See: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/workshop/author/dhtml/overview/window_restric.asp
I had tried (on 98?), and retried later (on XP) clearing values in this registry key:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_WINDOW_RESTRICTIONS]
As reported at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/workshop/author/dhtml/overview/xpsp2compat.asp
With no luck. MoveWindow still won't make window larger, though it does on the non-updated Win98 computer. It's confusing then what this key is about.


~~ Re: Window width~~
--> Thanks Dan for your reply. But Windows does constrain it (tested on Win98SE, Win2ksp4, WinXPsp2). And MoveWindow on Win98 & XP gives a max width of: screen-resolution+12 pixels. But if you can make your window, say 1500 pixels for screen of 1280 pixels on a Windows computer that's had all its MS updates, then that'd be an interesting twist to know "how?", although taller, not wider, is immediate need.



Thoughts/Commentary:
====================

~~ Possible solutions ~~
- Hex-edit a windows file
- Capture, modify, & re-send API calls to trick a window into thinking that the screen resolution is higher than it really is. Thus, the window could be resized to the spoofed resolution. Now there's a solution I would marvel over :)
- A web browser that better filters restrictive features like found at MSDN. Pop-ups are virtually history. Anti-frame is the next bold step toward user-friendliness...


~~ Security argument vis-à-vis usability ~~
A functionality I'd depended on suddenly disappeared through an "update". MS restricts sizes of all browser & non-browser windows. We are little children that we need daddy MS to to tell us that we can't cross our own screen? Are computers our servants, or must we settle to be belittled?... We are people with intelligence, able to code and direct to our heart's content: there ARE ways to have the security & also have full flexibility in our screen display, it's just a matter of using our wishful, designing, analytical, code-engineering & code-manipulating brains. MS, are you listening?...


~~ On maximizing display ~~
I'm an efficiency enthusiast, as statement "Since the figures represent an IE window WITH NO TOOLBARS but most people DO have 1 or more toolbars." indicated. I'd long ago long-ago reduced IE toolbar to a single line beside the Menu bar (Credit to MS for allowing this there, yet why not in Office & most other programs!?... and why the intrusive word "Address" forcefully gobbling up space?).
 

~~ On better design & customization ~~
With MS, there seems a pattern of inflexible, inefficient design...

Two of many examples:

Improved, open, panoramic display is pure delight. Inflexible design, such as windows that won't resize to the desktop (and beyond), are a blight. Why do many MS (and other) windows force unergonomic scrolling and squinting by restricting window size to a fraction of the desktop real-estate?

Windows Explorer & Internet Explorer use the same bookmarks. How more insane can MS get? And each entry takes up its own file, which is highly inefficient and stupid. I instead use xplorer2 for better management of file/folder bookmarks and use my own creation (using Quick Macros (QM) + Metapad) to manage hundreds of IE bookmarks per file, with unlimited comment entries.


~~ The problem revisited ~~
One problem is the MS logo etc. steadfastly stealing screen real-estate. Being a programmer ever thirsting for facts & knowledge, I need to use the MSDN. But it's very, extremely frustrating with those darn frames that MS has purposely designed to be inescapable even with the "Open Frame in New Window" tools. And like I said, I have an alternate solution (a QM script to extract, save, and then display the main frame contents in a new window, Google-cache-style), but prefer instead a taller window that simply hides the unproductive in-your-face area...when I do research, when I read a page on screen, I need option to view the info in full-screen-height (as it use to be, in the display-friendly Wordperfect-for-DOS days); else, it's like having to go through life with eyes half open.

May have to close this with a C. (Later when I get chance to analyze more).

Before "awarding" anybody with a C, please read this:
    What's the right grade to give?
    http://www.experts-exchange.com/help.jsp#hi73

need more time

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