17/6/25

Something that was not really working as it should is showing/hiding the different console sub windows. If you start a process, you get the process information, but nothing about the windows, and to show/hide a window, you need a handle to the main window.

An extra layer of complexity is that Ctrack chains sub programs with proxies:

If in the UI settings we flip the show/hide engine switch, we need to make sure that all relevant consoles are affected, also the proxies. In the case of Proxy3 and 4, the process info is not known by engine, engine will have to do the operation, so we still need a way to inform engine about the action. And as a further extension there is the engine as post processor

• The direct proxies can be accessed with  CProxyDevice::getMapProxies.
• The engine can be accessed with m_LiveEngineProcessInformation
• In buffered mode the process information is stored in m_BufferProcessInformation

Sequence of commands when changing visibility from the settings dialog:

• CSettings::SetShowConsole
• • Send command CCommandShowConsole
  • • On engine : OnShowConsole
  • ShowHideAllProxyWindows
  • DebugPrintShowHideConsole

Hiding - showing form the main program DOES NOT WORK

I give up on having the spawning process control the visibility of the console window of the spawned child process.

Here is a transcript of the ordeal

So the only way remaining to control the visibility state of the console windows is to send a command over the TCP connections and control the visibility on the moment of creation.

Second approach

Need to implement:

• ProcessStart makes the console initial visible or not
• Routine to show/hide the console window of the actual process
• • 'x' like the close button:  hide the console (h already taken for hardware detection)
  • 'o'  as in open show the console (s already taken to start live)
  • 'q' end the program
• CTrack::Message based commands to do the same on the proxies

void SetConsoleVisible(bool visible)
{
    HWND hwnd = GetConsoleWindow();

    if (!hwnd && visible)
    {
        // Allocate a new console
        if (AllocConsole())
        {
            // Redirect standard streams to the new console
            freopen("CONOUT$", "w", stdout);
            freopen("CONOUT$", "w", stderr);
            freopen("CONIN$", "r", stdin);
        }

        hwnd = GetConsoleWindow(); // Re-fetch after allocation
    }

    if (!hwnd)
        return;

    ShowWindow(hwnd, visible ? SW_SHOW : SW_HIDE);

    // Modify extended window styles to control taskbar visibility
    long style = GetWindowLong(hwnd, GWL_EXSTYLE);
    SetWindowLong(hwnd, GWL_EXSTYLE,
        visible ? (style & ~WS_EX_TOOLWINDOW)
                : (style | WS_EX_TOOLWINDOW));

    if (visible)
    {
        SetForegroundWindow(hwnd);
        SetWindowPos(hwnd, HWND_TOP, 0, 0, 0, 0,
                     SWP_NOMOVE | SWP_NOSIZE | SWP_SHOWWINDOW);
    }
}

We need to check update the keyboard handling of

• engine
• proxies
• • template
  • vicon
  • leica

Testing

Engine only

• Start with engine invisible => engine should be invisible
• Settings show console => engine visible
• Close ctrack
• Open ctrack => engine visible
• Settings hide console => engine invisible
• Close ctrack
• Open ctrack => engine invisible again

With proxies

• HardwareConfiguration to open template proxy
• Settings => Hide
• Close all
• Start => all should be invisible
• Settings => Show
• Close all
• Start => engine should be visible
• hardware configuration => template should be visible

And the fucking frustration continues 😤

I think I have spend like a fucking week on hiding console windows, wanna shoot some fucking microschoft engineers right now.

🧪 TL;DR from experience

So now I need to :

• pass a --hide parameter at startup for engine and proxies
• handle this --hide parameter in main
• replace send Key characters with the next message
• • show
  • hide
  • quit