Adding new button to windows taskbar

This one:

int intTest = Win32API.Functions.User32.SendMessage(m_TaskbarWindowHandleIntPtr, Win32API.Constants.ToolbarButtonMessages.INSERT_BUTTON, (IntPtr)(intCount-1), intPtrRemoteBuffer);

It's the line that is actually sending the message to insert the button. Now what's interesting is that if I replace the line:

(IntPtr)(intCount-1) with:

IntPtr intPtrPosition = new IntPtr(intCount - 1);

int intTest = Win32API.Functions.User32.SendMessage(m_TaskbarWindowHandleIntPtr, Win32API.Constants.ToolbarButtonMessages.INSERT_BUTTON, intPtrPosition, intPtrRemoteBuffer);

I don't get the error but the button does not get created or at least it is not visible. I don't know what's going on.

Does someone know what is correct way to go about adding and moving buttons? I have seen programs that do it -- but there's very little documentation on it and I am seriously getting frustrated.

Please, anyone?????

whats the value of intCount at the crash? and why do you use IntPtr instead of int ?

intCount is the button count of all the open windows on the windows taskbar.

As I said before, if I instantiate a new IntPtr as a pointer to the intCount variable and pass that in to the SendMessage function, the program does not crash. But, no button is created.

If I pass the intCount variable, cast as an IntPtr, to the SendMessage function, Explorer.exe crashes.

I could try the SendMessage function with it just receiving an Integer and see if that works.

But either way, all I have been asking for is for someone, somewhere to post a working example of creating a button on the windows XP taskbar and move another button to that new tab and create a custom grouping.

What I need to do is group certain program windows together in seperate tabs on the windows XP taskbar depending on their captions.

There has to be a way to do it. I have seen programs that do it, but so far NO ONE has been able to offer up anything and it is extremely frustrating!

I don't care if it's a C++ example or a C# example or even a Delphi example. It doesn't matter. I just need to something that works and I can take it from there.

The reason fo the failure is in improper message.  The TB_INSERTBUTTON needs a pointer to an TBBUTTON record -- not a coerced -1.  

  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms913716.aspx

And it must be allocated in the Explorer's address space.   Now that I know that you'll accept a C++ example, I can do some work on this.

Thanks! I am now programming it in C++ because doing it in C# is not best thing. Also, I read that it is not recommended in C#. I am actually finding that writing in C++ is a great deal easier than writing it in C#.

I am not a great C++ programmer, but I am working on the solution. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Just to summarize what I need to get done for this project...

There's a program at work that contains different views for traders. They can open up multiple portfolio windows, multiple ledger windows, etc. Each of these windows are child processes of the main process. So, by default, Windows XP will group them all under 1 tab on the taskbar. The problem is that some traders can have 20 windows opened and they get confused and annoyed when they have to search for the window they want to look at.

Each window's caption will say what kind of window it is. So, if it is a portfolio screen, the caption will say 'Portfolio'. If it's a ledger screen, it will say 'ledger', etc.

So, what I need to do is have a button on the main program window (which I have done) and when the user clicks it, all the 'Portfolio' windows will be added to a group tab on the Windows XP taskbar and all the 'Ledger' windows will be grouped into their own group tab on the taskbar, etc. for each kind of window that is open.

So, I think I need to:

a) Create group tabs for each window type that is found (TB_ADDBUTTONS)
b) Move each associated window into one of the newly created group tabs respective to its window type

So, again, any help with this would be GREATLY appreciated. This project is annoying and the only thing I have found that remotely helps has been some Delphi code which I translated into C# (the code I posted) -- but it is not working.

Anyway, thanks again for your help. I very much appreciate it!

Sorry, I made some good progress, but hit a brick wall at TB_INSERTBUTTON.

I can't find the right combination of parameters and TBBUTTON data values that won't make Explorer crash.  You can look at this:

A tool to order the window buttons in your taskbar
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/shell/taskbarsorter.aspx

... for some guidance.  You can also look at the attached code -- which does collect info about a button, without error.

However, my best suggestion to use is to look at an interface that Explorer exposes for the single pupose of allowing external programs to muck around with the tasklist:

ITaskbarList Interface  
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb774652(VS.85).aspx

-- Dan

BOOL CALLBACK MyEnumChildProc( HWND hwnd, LPARAM lParam )
{
	char sBuf[200];
	::GetWindowTextA( hwnd, sBuf, sizeof(sBuf) );
	CString s( sBuf );
	if ( s == "Running Applications" ) {
		HWND* phwndRunningApps= (HWND*)lParam; 
		HWND hw= GetWindow( hwnd, GW_CHILD );  // first child is the toolbar
		*phwndRunningApps= hw;
		return( FALSE ); // done enumerating
	}
	return( TRUE ); // continue enumerating
}
 
HWND FindTaskBar()
{
	HWND hwndTaskBar= ::FindWindowA("Shell_TrayWnd", 0 );
	HWND hwndRunningApps= 0;
	EnumChildWindows( hwndTaskBar, MyEnumChildProc, (LPARAM)&hwndRunningApps );
	return( hwndRunningApps );
}
 
bool GetButtonText( HWND hwTB, int nBtnIdx, CString& sRet )
{
	BYTE  pLocalBuf[8192];
	DWORD dwProcessID;
	::GetWindowThreadProcessId( hwTB, &dwProcessID );
	HANDLE hProcess=  ::OpenProcess( PROCESS_VM_READ | PROCESS_VM_WRITE | PROCESS_VM_OPERATION ,
                                     false, dwProcessID 
	);
 
	BYTE* pRemoteBuf= (BYTE*)::VirtualAllocEx( hProcess, 0, 
                                        8192,
                                        MEM_COMMIT,
                                        PAGE_READWRITE
	);
	// DWORD n= ::GetLastError();
 
	int nChars= ::SendMessage( hwTB, TB_GETBUTTONTEXTA, nBtnIdx, (LPARAM)pRemoteBuf );
	::ReadProcessMemory( hProcess, pRemoteBuf, pLocalBuf, 255, 0 );  // copy to local buffer
	::VirtualFreeEx( hProcess, pRemoteBuf, 0, MEM_RELEASE );
	::CloseHandle( hProcess );
 
	sRet= pLocalBuf;
	return( TRUE );
}
 
bool GetButton( HWND hwTB, int nBtnIdx, TBBUTTON* pr )
{
	DWORD dwProcessID;
	::GetWindowThreadProcessId( hwTB, &dwProcessID );
	HANDLE hProcess=  ::OpenProcess( PROCESS_VM_READ | PROCESS_VM_WRITE | PROCESS_VM_OPERATION ,
                                     false, dwProcessID 
	);
 
	BYTE* pRemoteBuf= (BYTE*)::VirtualAllocEx( hProcess, 0, 
                                        8192,
                                        MEM_COMMIT,
                                        PAGE_READWRITE
	);
	// DWORD n= ::GetLastError();
 
	int nChars= ::SendMessage( hwTB, TB_GETBUTTON, nBtnIdx, (LPARAM)pRemoteBuf );
	::ReadProcessMemory( hProcess, pRemoteBuf, pr, sizeof(TBBUTTON), 0 );  // copy to local buffer
	::VirtualFreeEx( hProcess, pRemoteBuf, 0, MEM_RELEASE );
	::CloseHandle( hProcess );
 
	return( TRUE );
}
 
///////////////////////////////////
/////// this fails!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
///////////////////////////////////
 
struct TBUTTONPLUS {
	TBBUTTON rTB;
	char sText[200];
};
 
bool AddButton( HWND hwTB, int nBeforeIdx )
{
	BYTE  pLocalBuf[8192];
	DWORD dwProcessID;
	::GetWindowThreadProcessId( hwTB, &dwProcessID );
	HANDLE hProcess=  ::OpenProcess( PROCESS_VM_READ | PROCESS_VM_WRITE | PROCESS_VM_OPERATION ,
                                     false, dwProcessID 
	);
 
	BYTE* pRemoteBuf= (BYTE*)::VirtualAllocEx( hProcess, 0, 
                                        8192,
                                        MEM_COMMIT,
                                        PAGE_READWRITE
	);
 
	TBUTTONPLUS r = {0};
	DWORD nOffset= (DWORD)pRemoteBuf;
	nOffset += offsetof( TBUTTONPLUS, sText );
	strcpy( r.sText, "Hi there" );
	//wcscpy( (wchar_t *)r.sText, L"Hi there" );
 
	r.rTB.iBitmap= 0x000100b7;
	r.rTB.idCommand= 0x0c;
	r.rTB.fsState= 0x4c; // TBSTATE_ENABLED;
	r.rTB.fsStyle= 0xaa; // BTNS_BUTTON | BTNS_AUTOSIZE | BTNS_SHOWTEXT;
	r.rTB.dwData=  0;
	r.rTB.iString= nOffset; // points to just past the end of TBBUTTON 
 
	bool nRet= ::WriteProcessMemory( hProcess, pRemoteBuf, &r, sizeof(r), 0 );  // copy to remote buffer
 
	LRESULT lResult= ::SendMessage( hwTB, TB_INSERTBUTTONA, (WPARAM)nBeforeIdx, (LPARAM)pRemoteBuf );  
 
	::VirtualFreeEx( hProcess, pRemoteBuf, 0, MEM_RELEASE );
	::CloseHandle( hProcess );
 
	return( TRUE );
}
 
//------------------------------ tester code
//------------------------------ tester code
//------------------------------ tester code
//------------------------------ tester code
void CD06Dlg::OnBnClickedButton1()
{
	HWND hwTB= FindTaskBar();
 
	int nCnt= ::SendMessage( hwTB, TB_BUTTONCOUNT, 0,0 );
 
	CString sBtnText;
	GetButtonText( hwTB, 13, sBtnText ); // eyeball check: this works!
 
	TBBUTTON r = {0};
	GetButton( hwTB, 13, &r ); //  also works
 
	AddButton( hwTB, 13 );  // fails! sorry!
}

                                              

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Thanks for the help but I have all that code already. I can already get all the buttons and the text of each button and even the button icons. I also have used the ITaskbarList interface but unfortunately, that interface does not allow you to move buttons -- but only to add or remove them. It's very limited in its functionality.

I guess I will keep looking for the answer or I will call Microsoft (I hate calling them). Well, thanks again. If you figure it out at some point, please let me know.

If anyone else has a solution, PLEASE, PLEASE respond.

If you can add and remove, then you can insert and rearrange in any desired order.

Also, If you have looked at that codeproject link,  you also know how it rearranges:  

It gets each app's HWND from TBBUTTON.dwData

It then hides each window and then unhides them in the desired order.  There is a momentary flash while the taskbar is redrawn, but it gets the job done.

One other thought -- We might be overlooking the obvious:  

The easy (and normal, and fully documented) way to add a button to the taskbar is to create a new top-level window, and let the shell add the button for you.

I have done that. I am able to create an invisible form and add it to the toolbar. But I still am unable to add other windows to that tab on the Explorer task bar.

The most information I've seen about this was in that link I provided in your other question:

  Manipulating Taskbar Buttons
  http://w-shadow.com/blog/2006/10/01/manipulating-taskbar-buttons/

But even that author has to gloss over the issues.... we really can't know what Explorer expects to find in TBBUTTON fields like dwData.

Possibly a productive idea:  Figure out whar Explore does when it creates a 'group" button and try to create windows that trigger that action.  It appears that it stacks up windows that are being run by the same task -- eg, Office Word, or Notepad or Outlook Express.

Is there any way that you can arrange your scenario so that  the two categories of top-level-windows are owned by two different programs?

I can't change the parent process of the spawned windows.

That's a good idea. So, to clarify, I should create a custom toolbar and add/remove and move tabs on it?

I can definitely try that.