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Window Resizing

5 replies · 1,359 views · Started 10 April 2005

Here's an odd question: Is there any way to force Windows to resize a window that wasn't designed to be resizable? This isn't some sort of a curiosity question, I have an old program that won't work right without this (or something similar).

All I've been able to find so far is this: WireKeys
It has a plugin that lets you resize non-resizable windows. I hear it's a bit buggy sometimes, though. More importantly, it's about thirty dollars, but there is a two-week trial version.
I'm sure there's something better out there, but it's at least a start.

That was... interesting

Plugin didn't quite work the way I was hoping. I needed to see part of the window that isn't normally visible, but instead it just scaled what had been visible into the new window area. Oh well...

The problem is that is a flag set by the Window Class at creation; the only way to really make a window resizable is to save its state, destroy it, then recreate it from an altered Window Class. In API, this is a monumental feat that was done rarely enough that people are surprised .NET lets you change this on the fly.

Even if you managed to resize the window, the application you are using probably does something in code that assumes the fixed size, and it will probably get wonky once you resize it.

So Saffith's app may work, but I definitely agree that it should be a bit buggy.

Actually it was an app I wrote myself a long time ago. It was the editor for a puzzle game, and it kept the tile images in a persistant picture box outside the viewable window so they could be drawn to the main view. However, something's changed and the persistant data isn't persistant anymore. My thought was if I could resize the window and bring that picbox into view, perhaps then it would keep the image persistant and it would work again (right now all the level tiles are invisible, all you can see are the objects placed in the level). Unfortunately I don't have the source to that particular version of the program anymore so I can't go in and debug it. I'm wondering if something changed in Windows to cause this as I haven't touched the program in the longest time (and running it in the various compatability modes didn't help at all). Oh well - maybe one of these days I'll have enough interest to go back in and do more work on the recent version of it. (The shame is I had hundreds of levels in the old version, but without the editor the program doesn't feel complete)

AtmaWeapon wrote:Even if you managed to resize the window, the application you are using probably does something in code that assumes the fixed size, and it will probably get wonky once you resize it.
For some reason, I've always enjoyed using the word "wonky" to describe quirky computer behavior. 😊