Air window visibility paradox

[David Frank <Da...@on24.com>]

Hey there experts,

I have a unique situation with my Adobe AIR application, that I would be extremely grateful if anyone could help me understand.

Attached is an image of my situation. So, what I have is, in Windows 7, an AIR app launched with System Chrome = 'none', and Transparent = 'true', so that it only displays an icon in the center with a close button, without the typical window look. Now, what's interesting is that when I use some of the older colorpicker tools, the icon or the button (or anything within my Air window for that matter), are simply not detected. Every other window gets detected. When I move the mouse cursor over the icon, the colorpicker shows me the background and not the icon.

Now, it isn't that I need the colorpicker tool to detect my window. I'm actually happy this is happening. I'm am desperately trying to know the reason behind this so that I can use this same principle in my AIR application to capture the entire desktop screen excluding my AIR window in the foreground.

Can someone help me understand how the AIR app manages to stay invisible to the older colorpicker tools? Some of the newer ones seem to detect the app. So, I'm thinking this is something to do with the way post-Windows-Vista-OS'es have (Aero?), or something different with the GDI.

Can someone help me understand this, please?


If it helps, here are the older colorpicker tools I use:
http://www.iconico.com/download.aspx?app=ColorPic (Version 4.0, NOT Version 4.1)
https://archive.org/details/tucows_302256_ColorPicker


Thank you very very much!

David

RE: Air window visibility paradox

[David Frank <Da...@on24.com>]

My attached image didn't come through.

I've uploaded it now. Here is a link to my image: http://postimg.org/image/647z07n3l/

Thank you in advance for any help in understanding this.

- David

From: David Frank [mailto:David.Frank@on24.com]
Sent: Friday, December 11, 2015 11:54 AM
To: dev@flex.apache.org
Subject: Air window visibility paradox

Hey there experts,

I have a unique situation with my Adobe AIR application, that I would be extremely grateful if anyone could help me understand.

Attached is an image of my situation. So, what I have is, in Windows 7, an AIR app launched with System Chrome = 'none', and Transparent = 'true', so that it only displays an icon in the center with a close button, without the typical window look. Now, what's interesting is that when I use some of the older colorpicker tools, the icon or the button (or anything within my Air window for that matter), are simply not detected. Every other window gets detected. When I move the mouse cursor over the icon, the colorpicker shows me the background and not the icon.

Now, it isn't that I need the colorpicker tool to detect my window. I'm actually happy this is happening. I'm am desperately trying to know the reason behind this so that I can use this same principle in my AIR application to capture the entire desktop screen excluding my AIR window in the foreground.

Can someone help me understand how the AIR app manages to stay invisible to the older colorpicker tools? Some of the newer ones seem to detect the app. So, I'm thinking this is something to do with the way post-Windows-Vista-OS'es have (Aero?), or something different with the GDI.

Can someone help me understand this, please?


If it helps, here are the older colorpicker tools I use:
http://www.iconico.com/download.aspx?app=ColorPic (Version 4.0, NOT Version 4.1)
https://archive.org/details/tucows_302256_ColorPicker


Thank you very very much!

David