Re: What happened to NSConvertWindowNumberToGlobal
Re: What happened to NSConvertWindowNumberToGlobal
- Subject: Re: What happened to NSConvertWindowNumberToGlobal
- From: Finlay Dobbie <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2002 23:24:30 +0000
On Saturday, November 2, 2002, at 11:10 pm, Peter Fischer wrote:
NSWinow's api refers to the functionNSConvertWindowNumberToGlobal,
yet I can't seem to find this function anywhere. I have found
references to it on the web, and that it resides in NSGraphics.h, but
It doesn't appear to be there anymore.
I'm looking to gain control over windows outside the scope of my
application. I am able to get all of the numbers of other windows via
calls to NSCountWindows and NSWindowList, but when I try to obtain a
reference to an NSWindow using the window number, the only valid
window references that I obtain, are windows spawned by my own
application. NSConvertWindowNumberToGlobal appears to be the function
I am looking for, giving the the global window number that the
WindowServer uses to reference it.
Has this function no longer supported, and if not, will the
function provide the functionality that I am looking for? If it is no
longer supported, is there another way to go about this?
I think that there is no longer any difference between global and local
window numbers, that was a holdover from the days of DPS. At least,
I've only ever seen one numbering scheme, CGSWindowNumber, and that is
global.
However, there is no (public) way to get a reference to windows outside
your application, and even if you could, you would not be able to
modify them without jumping through some serious hoops. Every
application has a connection to the windowserver, and it can only write
to windows that it "owns" (i.e. that it created). You can however read
from them using private windowserver API calls, and with a bit of
poking (forcibly loading yourself into the Dock and using its god-like
status hack which enables it to minimize windows and so on to "promote"
your app's connection to similar god-like status), you can write
properties, but since you're mucking with low-level windowserver calls
you can cause problems with things in high-level APIs not tracking the
changes correctly.
The fact that NSCountWindows and NSWindowList are public is probably a
bug, I can't really see any useful purpose without using other private
functions.
-- Finlay
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