how to detect a right-to-left windows interface c#?

Question

i want to place a small form above the notification icons in left-to-right interface the icons to the right of the screen in right-to-left interface the icons to the left of the screen i want the code for that to work on xp and win7 please

You'll have better luck with something like this on stackoverflow.com — Roman Starkov, Nov 23 '10 at 10:05

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 23 '10 at 10:53

2

Is this what you're looking for?

private static bool IsRightToLeft()
{
     return CultureInfo.CurrentUICulture.TextInfo.IsRightToLeft;
}

answered Nov 23 '10 at 10:53

stuartd

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score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 23 '10 at 13:41

2

The flag you're looking for is WS_EX_LAYOUTRTL (400000 hexadecimal). You get this flag by calling GetWindowLong(FindWindow(L"HHTaskBar", NULL), GWL_EXSTYLE).

answered Nov 23 '10 at 13:41

MSalters

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 23 '10 at 11:04

0

Any System.Windows.Forms.Control support such check: Control.RightToLeft.

MSDN

answered Nov 23 '10 at 11:04

abatishchev

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It's actually an underlying property of all windows, and you don't want it from a random window. You want the RTL proeprty from the taskbar window. – MSalters Nov 23 '10 at 13:35

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 23 '10 at 11:42

0

Stuart Dunkeld that dosnt help , CultureInfo has nothing to do with the interface if i could locate the location of the start button (on the taskbar) that would help

answered Nov 23 '10 at 11:42

user517353

1

score 0 · Answer 5 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:19

If you insist you can find the position and size of the Windows start button. To do that, first add this inside your class:

[DllImport("user32.dll")]
private static extern bool GetWindowRect(IntPtr hwnd, ref Rectangle rectangle);

[DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
public static extern IntPtr FindWindowEx(IntPtr hwndParent, IntPtr hwndChildAfter, string lpszClass, string lpszWindow);

[DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
public static extern IntPtr FindWindowEx(IntPtr hwndParent, IntPtr hwndChildAfter, IntPtr className, string lpszWindow);

Then use such code.. in this example I show its width but you can read its Left/Right location as well:

IntPtr hwndTaskBarWin = FindWindowEx(IntPtr.Zero, IntPtr.Zero, "Shell_TrayWnd", null);
IntPtr hwndStartButton = FindWindowEx(hwndTaskBarWin, IntPtr.Zero, "Button", null);
if (hwndStartButton.Equals(IntPtr.Zero))
{
    //Maybe Vista/Windows7?
    hwndStartButton = FindWindowEx(IntPtr.Zero, IntPtr.Zero, (IntPtr)0xC017, null);
}

if (hwndStartButton.Equals(IntPtr.Zero))
{
    MessageBox.Show("Sorry, can't find the Start button/orb");
}
else
{
    Rectangle rect = Rectangle.Empty;
    if (GetWindowRect(hwndStartButton, ref rect))
        MessageBox.Show("Start button width: " + rect.Width);
}

Tested successfully under XP and Windows7, the Vista/7 trick credit goes to Waylon Flynn in his answer to this question.

how to detect a right-to-left windows interface c#?

5 Answers5