Fullscreen plugin/app?

[Khez]

Hi!
I'm working on a naviworks plugin(addinplugin) witch take advantage of the touch and sensor capabilities of windows 8 Ultrabooks.

considering the limited screen space available on those kind of devices, I would want the interface to be as minimal as possible(I don't need to see the toolbars, or even the sides of the windows when it is active, only a limited set of toolpanels).

I'm wondering if it is still possible to do that by keeping my modification as a plugin. So far I've noticed that when you switch navisworks to fullscreen with F11, all the toolpanels like properties & selection sets dissapear, as well as my plugin toolpanel.

I fear that, if I start programming a stand alone application based on the navisworks api (like a viewer) I would have to re-do all the specific panels that I want to keep from Naviworks(Properties, selection sets, the animator timeline) so it wouldn't be of my interest if I want to save time.

I was thinking of making a plugin that displays a always-on-top, transparent WPF window on top of a full-screen navisworks, but if there is a way to hide everything but the view zone and the toolpanel zones, It would be ideal.

To reformulate, if my plugin could behave exactly like the ViewCube, witch stays when the user press F11, it would be Great.

I know what I'm making looks a bit like BIM 360, but I searched into it and I absolutely need those Navisworks features: an exhaustive property panel, lot of selection sets, work scheduling using a timeline... all of that on large navisworks files(hence the need of a Windows 8 Ultrabook).

What is the best approach to my problem?

[xiaodong_liang]

Hi Khez,

If I understand correctly, your requirement is to have a maximum screen, but can still displaying your plugin menu (transparent) on top of the screen like ViewCube or Navigation Bar.

About maximum screen, probably this app of Exchange Store might give you an idea?

http://apps.exchange.autodesk.com/NAVIS/zh-cn/Detail/Index?id=appstore.exchange.autodesk.com%3amaxim...

but, sorry, I do not see a way to display the menu on top. Even it is still a wish to expose ViewCube and Navigation Bar.  

[Khez]

Is there a way, that I can just replicate the same method/function the F11 key trigger?

I've looked at AppInfo, F11 seems to switch the Application.Gui.Fullscreen property to true, but that isn't accessible via the net API as far as I know. 

It also seem to change the properties of the "view" object (Application.ActiveDocument.View)

It has a Height and Width whitch changes to the screen resolution when navisworks is in fullscreen mode.

But those properties are ReadOnly, and there is no "Copyfrom()" method with the View object.

Maybe there is something about that in the COM API using interop? I'm not very familiar with it.

I've searched in the automation part of the COM API, but the only property I found that interact with the Navisworks window is NavisworksApplication.visible, wich is not very useful in my case.

Right know I'm looking into sending a simulated F11 keypress from my application to the Navisworks window, because it seems like the only way.