Windows 7 TaskBar API Questions - microsoft.public.dotnet.languages.vb

I'm trying to do myself a little program to manage the new jumplists
features of the pinned items in my taskbar.

i had been playing around with the new taskbar api for windows 7 and i
was able to add/edit custom jumplist items for "my program" but i would
like to access and modify the ones of the other programs already pinned,
for example, access to jumplist of Word, Excel and so on

have anyone accomplished this or know if its possible?

Christian Reizlein <creizl...@hotmail.com>
12/22/2009 9:00:20 PM

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Christian,

I don't know for sure but I'd be surprised if it were possible. The
jumplist contains items that trigger actions specific to the application in
question. Two questions spring to mind:

1. Why would you want to alter the jumplists of other applications?

2. Would you be happy with other applications modifying the jumplist of your
app?

Kind Regards,
Alex

"Christian Reizlein" <creizlein@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:e843En0gKHA.2596@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> I'm trying to do myself a little program to manage the new jumplists
> features of the pinned items in my taskbar.
>
> i had been playing around with the new taskbar api for windows 7 and i was
> able to add/edit custom jumplist items for "my program" but i would like
> to access and modify the ones of the other programs already pinned, for
> example, access to jumplist of Word, Excel and so on
>
> have anyone accomplished this or know if its possible?
>

"Alex Clark" <qua...@noemail.noemail>
12/22/2009 11:50:52 PM

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On 12/22/2009 21:50, Alex Clark wrote:
> Christian,
>
> I don't know for sure but I'd be surprised if it were possible. The
> jumplist contains items that trigger actions specific to the application in
> question. Two questions spring to mind:
>
> 1. Why would you want to alter the jumplists of other applications?
>
> 2. Would you be happy with other applications modifying the jumplist of your
> app?
>
> Kind Regards,
> Alex
>
>
> "Christian Reizlein"<creizlein@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:e843En0gKHA.2596@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
>> I'm trying to do myself a little program to manage the new jumplists
>> features of the pinned items in my taskbar.
>>
>> i had been playing around with the new taskbar api for windows 7 and i was
>> able to add/edit custom jumplist items for "my program" but i would like
>> to access and modify the ones of the other programs already pinned, for
>> example, access to jumplist of Word, Excel and so on
>>
>> have anyone accomplished this or know if its possible?
>>
>
>
Alex,

i had come with your questions as well, but there has to be some way, at
least with elevated priviledges, you can edit the registry to the whole
pc, access to all window features, all files, why not this?

After all, you can access all the MRU of all programs anyway from the
registry or trough API calls, so?

Alltrough, i see that there is a good point as well in your question 2,
but imagine we want to make a program just for this, to customize and
perrsonalize the jumplist of all the taskbar programs, that is the idea.

Regards,
Christian

Christian Reizlein <creizl...@hotmail.com>
12/23/2009 5:10:04 PM

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Hi Christian,

"Christian Reizlein" <creizlein@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:eK%23TDL$gKHA.2780@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
>
> i had come with your questions as well, but there has to be some way, at
> least with elevated priviledges, you can edit the registry to the whole
> pc, access to all window features, all files, why not this?

But different applications will store this information in different ways.
Some may use the registry, others might use a proprietary storage format in
a file in the user's local app settings directory.

> After all, you can access all the MRU of all programs anyway from the
> registry or trough API calls, so?

All? Office and other MS apps that follow a particular convention for their
MRU data, perhaps, but what about 3rd party apps? I know of apps that don't
store that information in the registry at all. I have also seen developers
write apps that store MRU data along with various other settings in an XML
settings file.

And that's just the MRU data - what about other services that are very
specific to the software in question? Word may be advertising features on
the jump list that Excel doesn't have. And what about apps that are not
even Windows 7 aware?

> Alltrough, i see that there is a good point as well in your question 2,
> but imagine we want to make a program just for this, to customize and
> perrsonalize the jumplist of all the taskbar programs, that is the idea.

As I stated in my first post, I may well be wrong, but I suspect this is:

a) Not a good idea or practice from a user interface standpoint.

b) Plain old impossible.

How would you customize the jumplist? Would you be adding your own items to
it, or removing existing items? If it's the former, you might prefer some
other method (such as a shell extension or window hook) to provide services
to all applications. If it's the latter, again I'd have to ask... why would
you want to remove things from the jumplist? If they're there, they're
there for a reason. Why would you want to remove functionality provided by
Windows and applications from the user?

Regards,
Alex

"Alex Clark" <qua...@noemail.noemail>
12/23/2009 11:05:37 PM

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