cabinboy46 wrote:

I tried WindowManager but it doesn't seem to work with DOS boxes within XP.

Please do not mix DOS boxes with DOSBox. It's not the same. 😉

I think he doesn't mean a DOS box, but is using DOSBox.

In Windows screen metrics are usually stored in the registry or in an ini file. While this is a feature that I would like, as well, I would imagine incorporating such a feature is too platform specific to easily be portable. Portability is important to DOSBox. One of the DOSBox devs can speak about this far better than I can.

I have no idea if/how AutoHotKey might be able to help, but give it a try. It can do a lot, and just maybe it will be able to do what you want.

I tried AutoHotKey and I got it to do what I wanted it to do. Thanks for the suggestion. I'd still like to see a built-in save window position feature however, but this will do in the meantime. Thanks again. :-)

Care to share how you did it? Because then I will add it to my own setup 😀

[quote="MiniMax"]Care to share how you did it? Because then I will add it to my own setup :)[/quote]

Certainly. Here's the AutoHotKey script I used for DOSBox to automatically open at 1280X1024 fully aligned to my desktop:

Run, I:\Emulation\DOS\DOSBox-0.72\dosbox.exe
WinWait, DOSBox 0.72
WinMove, 0, 0

You'll have to change & replace the path pointing to the DOSBox exe for your particular system, of course. It would be sooo much simpler if this ability to save window position were built-in by the developers, but in the meantime...

C.

A quick google search revealed that there seems to be no cross-platform SDL function for that...

a pathless way to move with autohotkey, especially usefull when you have a autohotkey script running anyway to move stuff around or so:

1WinMove, DOSBox,, 0, 0,,,DOSBox Status Window ;moves the main window
2WinMove, DOSBox Status Window,, 0, 0 ;moves the console window

It might need to be in a timer so it would look like this:

1#NoEnv
2#Persistent ; the time always runs
3SetTimer, dosbox, 250 ; timer will be executed every 250ms
4Return
5
6dosbox:
7{
8
9WinMove, DOSBox,, 0, 0,,,DOSBox Status Window ;moves the main window
10WinMove, DOSBox Status Window,, 0, 0 ;moves the console window
11}
12return

0,0 is the pixel position of the upper left corner of the window on the desktop. 0,0 is the upper left corner of your desktop.

further code explanation:
WinMove, DOSBox,, 0, 0,,,DOSBox Status Window
<- this moves any Window with Dosbox in the title (so all versions of Dosbox, if you want to differ between them, write WinMove, Dosbox 0.72....), except the Window with the title "DOSBox Status Window" (the console window), so you can place them independently.

BUT I'm sure that somewhere in the autohotkey forums is a script which will save Windows postition and will restore them for any program 😀

[quote="Dominus"]a pathless way to move with autohotkey, especially usefull when you have a autohotkey script running anyway to move stuff around or so:

[code]
WinMove, DOSBox,, 0, 0,,,DOSBox Status Window ;moves the main window
WinMove, DOSBox Status Window,, 0, 0 ;moves the console window[/code]

It might need to be in a timer so it would look like this:

[code]
#NoEnv
#Persistent ; the time always runs
SetTimer, dosbox, 250 ; timer will be executed every 250ms
Return

dosbox:
{

WinMove, DOSBox,, 0, 0,,,DOSBox Status Window ;moves the main window
WinMove, DOSBox Status Window,, 0, 0 ;moves the console window
}
return[/code]

0,0 is the pixel position of the upper left corner of the window on the desktop. 0,0 is the upper left corner of your desktop.

further code explanation:
WinMove, DOSBox,, 0, 0,,,DOSBox Status Window
<- this moves any Window with Dosbox in the title (so all versions of Dosbox, if you want to differ between them, write WinMove, Dosbox 0.72....), except the Window with the title "DOSBox Status Window" (the console window), so you can place them independently.

BUT I'm sure that somewhere in the autohotkey forums is a script which will save Windows postition and will restore them for any program :)[/quote]

Thanks. This is a better script than my cumbersome one. I couldn't figure out how to implement the timer thing. This is useful to me. Too bad that the DOSBox developers probably won't be able to provide a native screen save position feature. Ah well.

C.

you're welcome. Since I'm having my Windows taskbar on top a couple of apps get confused and like to place their appbar underneath my taskbar and for the most annyoing I solved this problem with such an autohotkey script, so there was nothing new for me to look for 😀

Okay - this was fun!

Based on Dominus' code, I have come up with this:

1#NoEnv                                          ; Avoid looking up empty variables in the environment.
2#Persistent                                     ; This script should always be running.
3
4SetTimer, DOSBoxMonitor, 1000                   ; Look for a new DOSBox window every 1 sec.
5return
6
7DOSBoxMonitor:
8IfWinNotExist, DOSBox,,DOSBox Status Window     ; If no DOSBox window exist, start an automatic
9  SetTimer, DOSBoxRepos, 500                    ;   re-position timer.
10return                                          ; Otherwise, we assume that is has already been
11                                                ;   been re-positioned.
12DOSBoxRepos:
13IfWinExist, DOSBox,,DOSBox Status Window        ; If a DOSBox window is detected,
14{                                               ;    re-position both windows.
15  WinMove, DOSBox,,0,0,,,DOSBox Status Window   ; Move the main window to top-left corner.
16  WinMove, DOSBox Status Window,,0,450          ; Move the status window below the main window.
17  SetTimer, DOSBoxRepos, Off                    ; Now that this DOSBox has been re-positioned,
18                                                ;   stop with the re-positioning.
19}
20return

With 2 timers like this, a new DOSBox window be automatically moved into the top-left part of the screen, but afterwards you are free to move it around.

nicely done....

Donno if it's still actual (I guess DOS will be actual forever as long as good old games live), but what a f@#k should I install AutoHotKey — I know it's an awesome tool, but just for DOSBox it has to be in my processes list always?
The ideal solution to solve this task was to use Windows command "cmdow" with parameter "/run", but it doesn't support using "/run" and "/mov" simultaneously.
So I used a tool "StartX" (http://www.naughter.com/startx.html), which starts DOSBox and then corrects it's window position. Here's the mine usage:
d:\Distr\System\Util\Win2K\Misc\StartX\1.06\StartX.exe /D"C:\Program Files (x86)\DOSBox-0.74" /P50,50 "C:\Program Files (x86)\DOSBox-0.74\DOSBox.exe -noconsole"

Zaytsev Artem wrote:

Donno if it's still actual (I guess DOS will be actual forever as long as good old games live), but what a f@#k should I install […]
Show full quote

Donno if it's still actual (I guess DOS will be actual forever as long as good old games live), but what a f@#k should I install AutoHotKey — I know it's an awesome tool, but just for DOSBox it has to be in my processes list always?
The ideal solution to solve this task was to use Windows command "cmdow" with parameter "/run", but it doesn't support using "/run" and "/mov" simultaneously.
So I used a tool "StartX" (http://www.naughter.com/startx.html), which starts DOSBox and then corrects it's window position. Here's the mine usage:
d:\Distr\System\Util\Win2K\Misc\StartX\1.06\StartX.exe /D"C:\Program Files (x86)\DOSBox-0.74" /P50,50 "C:\Program Files (x86)\DOSBox-0.74\DOSBox.exe -noconsole"

StartX is great.

At first I thought it was a little old but no.
I tried different options and programs.
AutoHotkey, CMDOW, studdied a lot CMD.EXE posibilities,
and none was quite as good and effective to RUN a program with position defined as StarX

StarX /P0,0 "file.exe"

and done!

Thank you.

It was hours hard work till I finally have it.

Thanks again.