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Topic: «Safari does buttons BETTER than AWM , Look at the way Safari 4.0 does buttons on title bars in Vista » on forum: General   Views: 7156
 
John MacDonald
Registered user
 
 Posts: 24
Joined: 11/15/2006
Posted: 03/22/2009 06:03:39
 
 
 Now that Safari 4.0 is out, will the developers of AWM admit that theirs is NOT the best way of implementing additional new buttons on a window title bar in Vista with the Aero desktop?

The way AWM does it is a HACK - they paint transparent buttons on the desktop at a calculated location so that it LOOKS as if they're integrated into the respective app window - when they're not, they are just sitting there on your desktop on top of the app!  Anyone who has had AWM crash can confirm this (buttons can be frozen in random places around the desktop) - or if they observe the way the buttons appear and disappear when you minimize/maximize the app to the taskbar (they actually get drawn on the desktop before the respective app has mazimised!!).  Or the way the buttons get messed up on apps that have unconventional title bars - and then you have to set a manual exclusion for that app.

In the past the AWM developers have complained that they have no choice - this HACK is due to the way Aero works, making any modification of an actual app's title  bar impossible.

But this claim is now obviously FALSE, and it looks like AWM simply doesn't have the technical know-how to implement buttons on title bars in Vista properly.  Safari 4.0 implements a custom button (new tab) that is properly integrated into the app title bar itself (it even has its own custom look) and not only that, the entire title bar is customized (tabs split the whole title bar into different 'pieces').

And of course, AWM doesn't work wit Safari 4.0 - the little hacked buttons appear in funny places, blocking out the PROPERLY IMPLEMENTED custom button that Safari has PROPERLY integrated into the app's title bar itself.
 
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Alexey Fadeyev
Administrator

Moderator
 
 Posts: 1436
Joined: 09/30/2005
Posted: 03/24/2009 10:50:52
 
 
 John,

Thank you for your continuing interest to our software and for your constant help in making it better.

Actually, we never claimed that our way of implementing additional title buttons in Vista Aero is the best - we only claimed that it's the best possible. (Of course, saying that, we should keep in mind that we are discussing the embedding of additional title buttons into other applications.)

Considering this, your "new Safari" example seems a bit improper: Safari doesn't embed additional buttons into other windows' title bars but merely draws them onto its own window (which is much more simple than the task our software performs).

Nevertheless, we have been making some technical research on the method by which Safari implements its additional buttons - and here is the predictable result: in Vista Aero it creates an additional window which is "just sitting there on your desktop on top of the app". If you have some knowledge of such tools as Process Explorer or Spy++ - you can simply verify this result on your own.

Thanks to your help, we discovered the problem our programs have with Safari windows and found the possible solution. However, it won't be implemented until Safari goes out of its "beta" status.

Please keep us informed of any other ideas, questions or problems you have with our tools. Thank you in advance!
 
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