AREXX - MUI (or any other app) windows to front

Is there a way to bring (active or non-active) app wiindows to front with AREXX?

I know that Workbench has an arexx port, but the manipulation possibilities end with Workbench windows (drawers), no apps supported.

MUI does have an inbuilt Arexx port aswell, but there is no "window to front" command available, only QUIT, HIDE, SHOW and such (as default) and sometimes, like in Odyssey's case a SCREENTOFRONT (which won't work on it's window, obviously)

The workaround right now is to send HIDE and SHOW to Odyssey one after the other to make it vanish and come up again (in front of all the other windows), but it looks flickery and everything else than smooth (plus it looks buggy, if the window was already in front).

So, is there a way with already available methods to bring app windows to the front within AREXX scripts, or do i have to bother the MUI devs to add such a command (which would also mean to *maybe* get support solely in MUI apps)?

It would be application specific as all arexx ports are.

@broadblues

OK, MUI is the way to go, thank you

@broadblues

I thought that there maybe a way to use another program for this task, e.g. the Window to front commodity.
But it also only provides the means of doing it with the mouse and manually and does not have an arexx port or command to do so.

Popping windows to the front can be done programmatically, but not really directly using ARexx. There would probably need to be some sort of intermediate program to do that. The popping windows to the front thing isn't that difficult in itself, but the main difficulty I see is that ARexx isn't easily able to identify individual window objects, so specifying a window to pop forward is tricky. As Broadblues mentioned, the ARexx ports are application-specific, not window-specific. Show and Hide commands make sense, but when an application has more than one window open, how do you tell which one should be brought to the front?

It's an interesting problem - perhaps a commodity that serves a current window list that ARexx can scan and then manipulate would be a way to do it. If I thought I'd ever have the time to look at it, I would, but time is very thin on the ground these days...

@Daedalus

Quote:
I have to identify the Port of said Programm first anyway e.g. show(ports), look for odyssey.1 and then act on it accordingly.
That should be left to the one writing the script and not to the windowtofront switch/tool.

Windowtofront would be used the same way show, hide and quit would be.

Or did I misunderstand?

@Raziel

WindowToFront operates on the location of the mouse click, so is not really of use in this regard.

DepthToFront however, generates a list of windows, so in theory were an ARexx port added or similar program created that could give list of windows to bring to front. Tricky to make 100% reliable though as a windows might get closed inbetween fetching the list of open windows and issue to the TOFRONT command. Could be a useful little tool though ...

Good time to develop your coding skills to the next level?

@broadblues

Thore answered on my mui feature request.
Seems I'm mixing application ids with window ids.

Quote:
Bwahahahahahahahahaha...good one

Oh, you're serious?
You should know by now that coding skills are non-existent on my end.
I cant even recompile correctly (without help) let alone do a port on my own.

I can script in arexx which is pretty fun now that most of the stuff i try actually works.
But even perl or python is beyond my abilities.

Coding on the other hands means to invest time and time and time again and that is unfortunately impossible with my current job...

But thank you for the kind words

@all

Just for anyone intersted...Thore implemented a workaround in MUI