[Question] Avedesk desklets and Explorer together

Found it hard to title this thread. I guess I wanted to know whether it was possible to make a desklet that could attach to explorer in some way. Perhaps best to give an example.

Yz shadow and windowfx can draw shadows around the explorer frame, moving the shadows as the window is moved. If one drew shadows and an ini file to stretch or tile them, is there any way of avedesk attaching the images to the four sides of the window?

I'm no coder, but would such functionality be demanding to create? I'm working on a revised shellstyle to mimic the fiderbar, like kabal's but just a shellstyle for the visual style. I'm finding it slightly problematic, because I can only link to the predetermined 'other places' in the shell, and icons have to be included as bitmaps in the actual shellstyle. If avedesk had the ability to link a desklet to explorer, with some playing, perhaps a more effective solution to my problem might be possible.

Hope this question was phrased clearly, and I hope that this is the appropriate forum to post in. Any answer or advice would be appreciated.

#334586

Please, rephrase your question again. I don't get it.

I hazard a guess:

0- You really don't want AveDesk to be a YZShadow replacement. (Jedi hand waving gesture)

1- Do you want AveDesk to hook into explorer and render shell objects like 'My Computer' in explorer windows for you?

2- Do you want AveDesk desklets to appear as additional shell items?

3- Do you want AveDesk to take over or replace the entire folders pane of explorer like finderbar does?

pardon my confusion.

#334789

Thanks for your reply, and sorry for my poor phrasing. 2 and 3 would be closest to my meaning. I wanted to code a desklet to act like a sidebar in explorer, but just didn't know if it was possible to hook a desklet into explorer. I know it's probably a stupid question, but I'm just unaware of the limitations of avedesk. Even it could be integrated in true sense, I wondered if a desklet could be coded to move with an explorer window, and hide itself when the explorer window was closed.

I hope this is a little clearer, and if the question is stupid and the answer is a flat out 'no', please forgive my ignorance, and thankyou for your help.

#334799

Both 2 and 3 would require the AveDesk rendering to be adapted to some extent. There's a possibility that it can be done, since the thumbnails rendered in the control panel hint at the functionality required to paint a desklet anywhere else, like in a sidebar in explorer. This would require transmitting the image data to another process, which never can be as performant as it is presently.

IMHO, there is no "flat out 'no'" to the issue but a capital 'but...'.

One could say that Samurize has been drawing its configs to the taskbar for ages - a Vista like sidebar, and even an 'AveDock' would become possible by adapting to the challenge, but it's a busload of work...

hth,

herd

#334885

Well I'm sure it's far beyond my meagre capabilities, but I really appreciate you answering my question. Guess it's back to modifying the shellstyle, an area I feel more comfortable with.

Thanks again

#334890

Holy crap...I was just posting something about the possible hooking into explorer...hehe..Herd, could it be done using the apartment threading model, or (because of the rendering differences) would it be more of a processAttach. Trying to think it thru and it makes my head hurt.

#334891

A threading model applies to a single process/executable only. Outbound calls to explorer could be achieved through shared memory, window messages, COM/ActiveX to name a few. processAttach? No, we certainly don't want to turn AveDesk into a debugger that debugs explorer.exe to paste some bitmap data in (again jedi force gesture)... The more I think the more sense it gets:

Let's just assume a shell extension DLL is loaded into explorer process, like e.g. the iTunes toolbar, and it receives updated image data from the AveDesk process and displays it.

#335054

Ok, that's right...processAttach is for debugging and special conditions not available by other means (sort of a "hack" for getting something done, but not the best way).

I'm learning.

#335123