Windows 7 APIs

Windows 7 introduces a number of new APIs. In this post I would like to focus on ITaskbarList3. With this interface, it is possible to turn your application's taskbar button into a progress bar, as well as control what shows up as the thumbnail preview. It is even possible to add buttons to the preview window, as depicted below.



The code to add the buttons is quite simple:

DWORD dwMask = THB_TOOLTIP | THB_BITMAP;
THUMBBUTTON tbhButtons[2];
wstring btn1 = L"Button 1";
wstring btn2 = L"Button 2";

tbhButtons[0].dwMask = dwMask;
tbhButtons[0].iId = 0;
tbhButtons[0].iBitmap = 0;
tbhButtons[0].szTip[btn1.length()] = L'\0';
btn1.copy(tbhButtons[0].szTip, btn1.length());

tbhButtons[1].dwMask = dwMask;
tbhButtons[1].iId = 1;
tbhButtons[1].iBitmap = 1;
tbhButtons[1].szTip[btn2.length()] = L'\0';
btn2.copy(tbhButtons[1].szTip, btn2.length());

ITaskbarList3 *ptbl;
CoCreateInstance(CLSID_TaskbarList, NULL, CLSCTX_INPROC_SERVER, IID_PPV_ARGS(&ptbl));

ptbl->ThumbBarAddButtons(g_hWnd, ARRAYSIZE(tbhButtons), tbhButtons);

HIMAGELIST imglist = ImageList_LoadImage(NULL, L"btns.bmp", 16, 0, CLR_NONE, IMAGE_BITMAP, LR_LOADFROMFILE | LR_CREATEDIBSECTION);
ptbl->ThumbBarSetImageList(g_hWnd, imglist);