Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!usc!apple!alexr@apple.com
From: alexr@apple.com (Alexander M. Rosenberg)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Excel 3.0 and the WindowList
Message-ID: <13648@goofy.Apple.COM>
Date: 24 May 91 17:55:36 GMT
Sender: usenet@Apple.COM
Organization: Hackers Anonymous
Lines: 35


So, I've written code that calls SelectWindow on windows from other apps.

It crashes Excel (2.X through 3.0) if I do that. They have some sort of
bizarre WindowList. It's like this:

FrontWindow (with a bogus rect)
blank (presumably these are the editing areas and the icon bar, etc.)
blank
blank
blank
FrontWindow (with a different bogus rect)
next window (with a similarly bogus rect)
..
last window (with a similarly bogus rect)

None of the other Microsoft applications have such bizarre windows. (Nor
does _any_ other application I've experimented with.)

My only other option is to not call SelectWindow, but to use another
technique. I would probably call PostEvent for a mouseDown with very
illegal co-ordinates, and patch FindWindow to recognize those co-ordinates
and return the window I want in front. This has many more problems then
just incompatibility with Excel.

Any suggestions as to what kind of bizarre drugs they smoke at Microsoft, or
a suggestion as to how to force _any_ app to bring a particular window to
the front? (Excluding windoids, etc.)

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