Fumbling around in the dark and stumbling across the wrong solution

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re: Fumbling around in the dark and stumbling across the wrong solution

Yuhong Bao — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 22:10:57 GMT

The reason why -1 still can be used as a substute for 0xFFFF is because, in 16-bit Windows, -1 = 0xFFFF because the message value was 16-bit. It no longer equals 0xFFFF because the message value is increased to 32-bit in Win32.

re: Fumbling around in the dark and stumbling across the wrong solution

Norman Diamond — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 03:33:52 GMT

I wish to duplicate this followup in this thread because it follows up to this thread and there's no way to do newsgroup-style crossposts.

> It so happens that the numerical value -1
> for a window handle is suspiciously close to
> the value of HWND_BROADCAST:
> #define HWND_BROADCAST ((HWND)0xffff)
> It so happens that internally, the window
> manager supports (HWND)-1 as an alternative
> value for HWND_BROADCAST. (I leave you to
> speculate why.)

We can leave it to MSDN to say why.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/winui/winui/windowsuserinterface/dataexchange/dynamicdataexchange/usingdynamicdataexchange.asp

* Usually, the client broadcasts this message
* by calling SendMessage, with Â–1 as the
* first parameter.

re: Fumbling around in the dark and stumbling across the wrong solution

BryanK — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 20:02:03 GMT

Oh, you're right, it was part of the taskbar. But I put it on the right side of the screen (well, I put the Address toolbar on the right side of the screen, then added My Computer to it), and it didn't open up IE, just Acrobat. I also tried a file located on a mapped network drive (so it's from a different zone), and that didn't seem to make any difference.

What happens if you open the PDF from the Start->Run box? (Are ShellExecute and ShellExecuteEx working, in other words?)

re: That reminds me...

Revenant — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 16:51:14 GMT

BryanK -- Yes, that's the toolbar. (I was quite gratified when they started making it one of the default toolbars, since I've been using this particular feature since Win98.)

I'm running XP Pro SP2, and IE is not my default browser either. In fact, I told Windows never to use it - yeah, I know, like that ever made a difference...

Specifically, my PC is opening PDFs with the Acrobat plugin in an IE window. If I open then via a normal Explorer window, my application preferences are honoured.

Just out of interest: was your "My Computer" toolbar part of the taskbar when you tested, or part of a separate toolbar? If it was part of the taskbar, you might want to give it a go as part of a sidebar and see what happens. You'll need another (blank or otherwise) toolbar on the same screen edge to make it use the menu function.

re: Fumbling around in the dark and stumbling across the wrong solution

BryanK — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 15:49:42 GMT

> [I'm not saying that any of these were necessarily good ideas, but once you've shipped a feature you're committed to supporting it.]

Ah, I get it. So it sounds like the problem with IE is Microsoft's marketing department way back in 1995-96-ish, perhaps along with a lack of clairvoyance about future threats. :-P

(However, if Konqueror can indeed do all those things -- and it's been 4-5 years since I last used it -- then the fact that it's not coming out with a new patch every month should imply something too.)

Revenant -- You turn that toolbar on from the taskbar's context menu, right? (Right-click the taskbar, Toolbars, New Toolbar, select My Computer, hit OK.) That toolbar shows PDFs in Acrobat for me, not IE. This is 2K Pro SP4, though, so maybe that has something to do with it? (Also, IE is no longer my default browser, so that might be part of the difference too.)

That reminds me...

Revenant — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 13:28:35 GMT

Originally posted by Raymond:
[Or view a PDF file inside the browser window instead of using an external plug-in?]

That reminds me of an interesting thing my PC does...

I have several toolbars set up as a sidebar on the desktop, including a "My Computer" bar which lets me browse my filesystem via drop-down menus. One interesting side-effect of this method is that when I open a PDF from this menu, it opens in IE!

I'm guessing this is because the ability to make toolbars out of folders came with IE4, which was the first version of IE to be integrated into Windows, and that somehow they're treated as being part of the "IE side" of Explorer, which naturally opens PDFs inline?

... Will this be bugfixed in Vista? ;)

re: Fumbling around in the dark and stumbling across the wrong solution

BryanK — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 15:31:07 GMT

Regarding IE:

> Can you open your My Computer folder from your favorite non-IE browser?

No, but on the other hand, I don't see the point of being able to do this, either. That's what Windows Explorer is for. (No matter how much Microsoft marketing wanted us to believe that the Internet was no different from the local machine 5 years ago, it wasn't true then, and it's even less true now. The local machine can be trusted much more than the Internet can be.)

(Note that I can do it (or its equivalent, view the root directory) in Konqueror. It's just that Konqueror isn't my *favorite* non-IE browser.)

> How about an FTP site in icon mode so you can drag/drop files to upload/download?

What's the point of this? It makes it slightly easier for new users, or something? If you have a browser, why would you expect to be able to drag-and-drop to download a file? Wouldn't users expect to click a file to download it, just like when you're browsing via HTTP? Except, oh, that's right, marketing says that the Internet is no different from the local filesystem again.

OTOH, most third-party FTP programs have a drag-and-drop mode (and it's possible that some of them will accept drops from Windows Explorer too, I don't know). Not sure how many of them are free, though. And when you're using a different program for FTP, it's a little more obvious that a different action may be required to download a file, so the interface "cost" of going fully DnD isn't as high.

(Actually, Konqueror may be able to do this also, but I've never tried it so I don't know for sure. Certainly the infrastructure is there; someone would just need to write an FTP kioslave.)

> Or view a PDF file inside the browser window instead of using an external plug-in?

"External plug-in" like the one from Adobe that's required for IE too (at least IE6SP1)? No, I can't view PDFs without that. But with it, I can view them "inside the browser window".

(But I doubt that Adobe has a plug-in for Konqueror. However, KDE does have a PDF viewer (named, appropriately enough, kpdf), and it's possible that kpdf can be invoked inside the Konqueror window. Never tried that either, though, so I don't know for sure.)

[I'm not saying that any of these were necessarily good ideas, but once you've shipped a feature you're committed to supporting it. Even the bad features. Companies have built line of business processes around these features. -Raymond]