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Blackbox and Windows 8 Apps

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#1 GSA

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Posted 16 February 2015 - 01:01 AM

I have a hard time controlling 'Metro'-apps with the BlackboxBar. When I close the apps, they still remain in the bar. Is there any way to change how the Bar behaves in regards to the windows apps?



#2 mojmir

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Posted 16 February 2015 - 07:17 AM

what's a metro app? can you name one (simple and free one would be great)?



#3 GSA

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Posted 16 February 2015 - 01:09 PM

You know, like when you press the windows button in Windows 8, the screen changes to a launcher where you can start apps like 'Maps' and 'Recipes' etc. When I start those apps, they appear in the bar, but when I close them, they remain in the bar, even though the process is shut down through task manager.



#4 mojmir

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Posted 16 February 2015 - 01:12 PM

ok, i'll try it at home.. i have only win7 at work



#5 pitkon

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Posted 16 February 2015 - 03:40 PM

You know, like when you press the windows button in Windows 8, the screen changes to a launcher where you can start apps like 'Maps' and 'Recipes' etc. When I start those apps, they appear in the bar, but when I close them, they remain in the bar, even though the process is shut down through task manager.

Did you install Blackbox as shell?



#6 mojmir

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Posted 16 February 2015 - 07:10 PM

did a little sniffing

they are windows from two processes:

* shellexperiencehost.exe

* applicationframehost.exe

 

these windows really have empty text as caption string or simple text "window" so the blackbox behave correctly-ish.

 

what can we do:

a ) we can filter out these windows based on modulename (these two .exe files)

b ) do something better

 

not sure what b ) exactly is... yet ;)


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#7 mojmir

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Posted 16 February 2015 - 07:47 PM

some wisdom from net:

 

The classic look won't work for Store apps on Windows 10 at all, because the title bar of Store apps is not drawn by the system but provided by a host application (that's what ApplicationFrameHost.exe is for) which is likely to use XAML for rendering. This explains why the title bars look slightly different on Store apps and classic Win32 apps.

 

 

makes sense, i saw that the metro app has two hwnds - one for titlebar and one for the app window



#8 GSA

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Posted 17 February 2015 - 08:30 PM

Thanks for the detective work mojmir!

 

pitkon - yeah, it's installed. As far as i can tell at least!  :)



#9 pitkon

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Posted 18 February 2015 - 08:02 AM

Thanks for the detective work mojmir!

 

pitkon - yeah, it's installed. As far as i can tell at least!  :)

Then it's up to Mojmir. Only reason I asked is that you usually see leftovers when BB is NOT installed as shell, but it seems this is not the case here... I am sure Moj will figure it out and work on it for his next build.



#10 scruffty

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Posted 18 February 2015 - 01:14 PM

WinCustomize has a program that puts the metro Apps in a frame so you can control them as you would any other windows App.The program is not free but will be useful to our needs.The Gods of microsoft assure us that this will be part of later editions of windows 10.


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#11 Pico_No_Blackbox

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Posted 10 March 2015 - 08:14 AM

Lol still better then me, i cant even see/open any appstore apps while running blackbox. If you know how, I'm all ears.


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#12 mojmir

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Posted 10 March 2015 - 03:43 PM

what do i do to reproduce it?



#13 Pico_No_Blackbox

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Posted 10 March 2015 - 03:50 PM

run windows with explorer shell. Run the windows app store. Then go back to black box and try to run the windows store or any other metro app you have. They wont work saying some error about a class not registered.

Posted Image

 

Yeah this has always been an issue with blackbox and windows 8. I just never used many metro apps before but now i need to daily. So if u can solve this somehow, i can get back to using blackbox rather then explorer.



#14 mojmir

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Posted 23 March 2015 - 12:10 PM

okay, will try (sorry i was having flu, hence the delay)



#15 mojmir

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Posted 24 March 2015 - 08:42 AM

tried that yesterday but it worked quite well for me. but i think i had bbleanskin disabled... can you try to disable it too? just to tell if the problem is related to bbleanskin or not



#16 jschall

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Posted 02 April 2015 - 01:41 PM

I am running the latest Technical Preview of Windows 10, with the new Project Spartan browser (a Modern/Metro app). I would like to rune Spartan from the Quick Launch BB plugin, but I have no idea how to create a shortcut to Spartan like I can to Chrome, for example.

 

Any idea how to run Spartan or other "Modern" apps in BlackBox?







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