Docking Form and Changing Workarea

Hi,

I am using VisualBasic and am trying to "dock" my form to the bottom of the screen, but also to shrink the workarea so that other applications are forced to open above the form; in essence kind of like the start menu taskbar does.

There has to be some way to do it in api becuase i've seen programs like ICQ and alladvantage do this, can someone help me on this?

Thanks
Sarmad.

Hi,

The easy way to dock your form to the workarea is to use the SysInfo Control to establish the workarea dimensions. I suppose that the SetWindowPos Function could be used to reset the dimensions of the workarea. I don't know if this would help though I'd have thought your program would reposition with the workarea, only guessing never tried this. You might as an alternative wish to make your program always sit on top, I'm sure routines to do this can found in the MSDN. Hope this helps

Phil.

Phil,

I know how to do this, but this will not shrink the workarea. Therefore, other programs will still be able to cover up the form.

If AlwaysonTop is enforced, then those programs will simply be thrown behind the form. Docking implies that the workarea would shrink, so those programs would not be allowed to enter the area where the form is; they would simply have their boundaries defined beyond the form.

Is there anyway to do this? btw if my explanation doesnt make sense, examples of docking are AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, Alladvantage, etc.

Thanks
Sarmad.