Question

I need to be able to launch a browser window from VBA code (that part’s easy), but I also need it to display maximized on the current monitor. To make things better (read: worse), I need to support a quad-monitor display. So, the user could have 4 windows active on 4 separate monitors, and depending on which window/monitor triggers the website to open, it should be maximized in that monitor.

As I mentioned before, launching a website is trivial (yes, IE is a requirement. Boo.):

Shell ("cmd /c start c:\progra~1\intern~1\iexplore.exe http://www.google.com")

However, several details surrounding this are troublesome, namely:

1. Can I specify where the window shown in a new process starts up?
2. Can I specify that a window shown in a new process will be shown maximized?
3. Can I detect more than two monitors using this Win32 Function?
4. Knowing which monitor is the current one, can I specify which monitor to show the new window on?

Any advice pointing me in the right direction would be helpful!

Answer 1

I assumed this is going to be called from Excel. The Idea is that you pass your Excel Objects window Handle (hWnd) and retrieve its ‘Rectangle’ Object from User32. Using this rectangle data, You then create an IE instance and overlay your IE object overtop of the target Rectangle using the SetWindowPos API call. Finally, we issue the Maximize command with the ShowWindowAsync API command, then load in the website. I currently cannot test on dual monitors, but it should give you a good start.

Public Type RECT
   x1 As Long
   y1 As Long
   x2 As Long
   y2 As Long
End Type

Public Enum SetWindowPosFlags
     SWP_ASYNCWINDOWPOS = &H4000
     SWP_DEFERERASE = &H2000
     SWP_DRAWFRAME = &H20
     SWP_FRAMECHANGED = &H20
     SWP_HIDEWINDOW = &H80
     SWP_NOACTIVATE = &H10
     SWP_NOCOPYBITS = &H100
     SWP_NOMOVE = &H2
     SWP_NOOWNERZORDER = &H200
     SWP_NOREDRAW = &H8
     SWP_NOREPOSITION = SWP_NOOWNERZORDER
     SWP_NOSENDCHANGING = &H400
     SWP_NOSIZE = &H1
     SWP_NOZORDER = &H4
     SWP_SHOWWINDOW = &H40
End Enum

Public Enum SpecialWindowHandles
    HWND_TOP = 0
    HWND_BOTTOM = 1
    HWND_TOPMOST = -1
    HWND_NOTOPMOST = -2
End Enum

    Const SW_SHOWNORMAL As Integer = 1
    Const SW_SHOWMINIMIZED As Integer = 2
    Const SW_SHOWMAXIMIZED As Integer = 3

'taken from IE's ReadyState MSDN Specs
Enum READYSTATE
    READYSTATE_UNINITIALIZED = 0
    READYSTATE_LOADING = 1
    READYSTATE_LOADED = 2
    READYSTATE_INTERACTIVE = 3
    READYSTATE_COMPLETE = 4
End Enum

Declare Function GetWindowRect Lib "user32.dll" (ByVal hWnd As Long, rectangle As RECT) As Boolean

Declare Function SetWindowPos Lib "user32.dll" (ByVal hWnd As Long, ByVal hWndInsertAfter As SpecialWindowHandles, ByVal X As Integer, ByVal Y As Integer, ByVal cx As Integer, ByVal cy As Integer, ByVal uFlags As SetWindowPosFlags) As Boolean

Declare Function ShowWindowAsync Lib "user32.dll" (ByVal hWnd As Long, ByVal windowMode As Integer) As Boolean

Public Sub Test()

    BrowseIEMaxFromParent Application.hWnd, "www.google.com"
End Sub

Public Sub BrowseIEMaxFromParent(targetHWND As Long, url As String)

    Dim ie As Object
    Dim xlRect As RECT

    Set ie = CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application")

    If GetWindowRect(targetHWND, xlRect) Then

        ie.Visible = True

        'HWND_TOP sets the Z Order to our IE Object
        'x2 - x1 ==> Width (In Pixels)
        'y2 - y2 ==> Height (In Pixels)
        If SetWindowPos(ie.hWnd, HWND_TOP, xlRect.x1, xlRect.y1, (xlRect.x2 - xlRect.x1), (xlRect.y2 - xlRect.y1), SWP_ASYNCWINDOWPOS) Then

            'use constants from above for size mode, enums won't work as it needs integer type
            ShowWindowAsync ie.hWnd, SW_SHOWMAXIMIZED

            ie.Navigate url

            'wait until navigated
            While ie.Busy Or ie.READYSTATE <> READYSTATE.READYSTATE_COMPLETE
                DoEvents
            Wend

        Else
            MsgBox "Failed to Set Position"
        End If
    Else
        MsgBox "Failed to Find HWND"
    End If
End Sub