Question

How can I avoid the taskbar popping up when set to autohide, when using ShowBalloonHint?

Answer 1

The notification area in Windows has a defined behavior. You can wish it behaved differently, but that doesn’t change the fact that what you want to do cannot be done.

Sorry for the inconvience.

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A close workaround would be to create a TOOLTIP window yourself, and position it on the screen near where you think the user’s notification area might be:

• bottom right
• top right
• bottom left
• primary monitor
• secondary monitor

That will involve using

• GetSystemMetrics(SM_CXFULLSCREEN)
• GetSystemMetrics(SM_CYFULLSCREEN)
• SystemParametersInfo(SPI_GETWORKAREA)

Then you create a TOOLTIPS_CLASS window:

    FHandle := CreateWindow(TOOLTIPS_CLASS, PChar(''),
            WS_POPUP or TTS_BALLOON,
            Integer(CW_USEDEFAULT), Integer(CW_USEDEFAULT),
            Integer(CW_USEDEFAULT), Integer(CW_USEDEFAULT),
            0, 0, HInstance,
            nil);

Then you would send it the TTM_SETTITLE, TTM_UPDATETIPTEXT, TTM_TRACKPOSITION messages, and finally the big moment: TTM_TRACKACTIVATE:

And then sometime later you hide the tooltip with another call to TTM_TRACKACTIVATE.

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You’re free to follow Windows user experience guidelines, or you can roll your own.