Centering an AIM Module Plugin Window

The window.external.window.center() is a handy function in the AIM Modules API that you can use when all you want to do is center a window without regard for the buddy list. If you want to center a plugin window in a way that accounts for the buddy list, then you will need to write your own function. A solution I actually needed in one of my plugins.

In order to center a window, we need to know what monitor it’s in. Here is a function that returns the monitor for a given window:

function findMonitorForWindow(tWnd)
{
    // loop over all monitors until we find the one where
    // the top left corner of the target window is in
    for (var i=0; true; i++) 
    {
        var m = client.findWindow('_monitor'+i);
        if (m.exists)
        {
            if ( tWnd.x >= m.x && tWnd.x < (m.x + m.width) &&
                 tWnd.y >= m.y && tWnd.y < (m.y + m.height) ) 
                return m;
        }
        else
            break;
    }
    // default to first monitor
    return client.findWindow('_monitor0');
}

NOTE: ‘client’ above is the window.external.client object that has been assigned to a global variable.

Now that we can find the monitor for a given window, we can center the window any way we want in this monitor. Here is a function that centers the window over the region not occupied by a docked buddy list.

function BuddyListAwareCenterWindow(tWnd)
{
    // The standard center function:
    var center = function(o,w,n) { return (o + ((w-n)/2) ); }
 
    var tWndMonitor = findMonitorForWindow(tWnd);
    var blWnd = client.findWindow('_buddylist');
    var blWndMonitor = findMonitorForWindow(blWnd);
    var blWidth = 0, blOffset = 0;
 
    // are both windows in the same monitor?
    if (tWndMonitor.monitorIndex == blWndMonitor.monitorIndex)
    {
        // adjust centering width if bl is docked on either left or right
        if (blWnd.x == 0 || (blWndMonitor.width - blWnd.width) == blWnd.x )
            blWidth = blWnd.width;
        // adjust centering offset if docked on left.
        if (blWnd.x == 0)
            blOffset = blWnd.width;
    }
 
    tWnd.move( 
        center(tWndMonitor.x +  blOffset, tWndMonitor.width - blWidth, tWnd.width),
        center(tWndMonitor.y, tWndMonitor.height, tWnd.height) );
}

There are some edge cases like when a window is bigger than the space it’s centered on, but this solution should help you get started.

Tags: AMO, JavaScript, Open AIM, Sample Code, Tips

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 at 7:57 am and is filed under AIM SDK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Centering an AIM Module Plugin Window