guest window size indicator

[stoli]

I find that the Video Capture feature has been very useful to me. Since the capture display has to be preset prior to launching the guest, I'd like to be able to adjust my guest display (View -> Host+G) to either snap to the capture display size, or maybe make it just a bit bigger without going through the trial-and-error process of adjusting the guest display then checking the Session Information then adjusting the display then checking .... and so on until I get it right.

is there a way to see the guest display size dynamically (i.e. middle or top or bottom of the window) as I'm adjusting the display size? In other words, is there a guest display size indicator that I can enable so I don't have to constantly look at the Session Information?

Host: Windows 7 64bit
VBox: 4.3.10

[socratis]

You don't mention your guest OS, but most of them allow you to set their resolution to a number of well known resolutions. No trial and error at all.

[mpack]

That's fine if the size you want is one of the suggested sizes.

I don't know about other guests, but it used to be the case with a Windows guest (e.g. XP) that if you dragged the window boundary while the "display properties" dialog was open, then the dialog would dynamically update to show the current size. For some reason that stopped working in recent VBox versions. Perhaps there's some plug and play refresh signal that VBox no longer sends until the host mouse button is released. However the old behaviour wasn't documented anywhere, so the lack of it can't be called a bug. The best I can suggest is to raise a BugTracker ticket for this but flag it as a suggestion.

[loukingjr]

On Macs, there are a few programs that will resize/snap a window to a user defined size. I'm sure there must be something similar for Windows 7.

[mpack]

I'm not sure how that would work: the point is to get the client area of the window to a certain size, not the entire window rectangle (*) - which is the likely to be the only thing another app would recognize. I guess it would work if you had a convenient formula for translating client sizes to window sizes.

(*) To give a concrete example, if you chose the standard 1024x768 display size, the client area would be 1024x768, but the window size would be somewhat larger.

[loukingjr]

I'm not sure how that would work: the point is to get the client area of the window to a certain size, not the entire window rectangle (*) - which is the likely to be the only thing another app would recognize. I guess it would work if you had a convenient formula for translating client sizes to window sizes.

(*) To give a concrete example, if you chose the standard 1024x768 display size, the client area would be 1024x768, but the window size would be somewhat larger.

how it works for me is, I have to add 43 pixels to the height. so if I want 1920x1080, it has to be set to 1920x1123. you just have to set the window size to some size you want then look at the guests resolution and add or subtract the difference.

[mpack]

And just for the record, I'm not aware of a Windows tool which can set the size of another applications window. Such a tool would be possible of course.

[loukingjr]

I did a search a while ago and found several. I probably could have found more if I reworded the search on softpedia.com
Window Resizers

[rpmurray]

Sizer although the 64-bit version is still in beta. You can download the work-in-progress versions to test out.

[mpack]

I wouldn't have thought a 64bit version was necessary. It only needs to send a resize message to a top level window. What possible use could such an app have for >4GB RAM? What possible use does it have for beta testing!

[rpmurray]

I don't know if the actual application is 64-bit, but it apparently needs tweaking to support 64-bit Windows. The developer is shaking out the bugs while he does that, works around problems with some applications that are not well-behaved and adds some other features, so it's still officially beta.

[stoli]

I'm not sure how that would work: the point is to get the client area of the window to a certain size, not the entire window rectangle (*) - which is the likely to be the only thing another app would recognize. I guess it would work if you had a convenient formula for translating client sizes to window sizes.

(*) To give a concrete example, if you chose the standard 1024x768 display size, the client area would be 1024x768, but the window size would be somewhat larger.

You are absolutely correct. I was careful in indicating 'display size' instead of 'window size'.

My query boils down to this: Is there a way to see the _guest_display_size_ as I am dynamically adjusting the _guest_window_size_? I just would like to have an idea of what the display size is as I'm resizing the guest window. In your original reply, it appears that there isn't ... not yet, at least.

My workaround is the back and forth process that I mentioned in my original post; adding a bit more around the edges. It works! But it's not very efficient. It gets frustrating when my captured video (e.g. a webex demo) gets truncated around the edges.

[loukingjr]

My workaround is the back and forth process that I mentioned in my original post; adding a bit more around the edges. It works! But it's not very efficient. It gets frustrating when my captured video (e.g. a webex demo) gets truncated around the edges.

I just wanted to mention the way you are trying to size a window to create a certain display size was the way I was doing it in the past. I no longer have to use trial and error to get the results I want. I didn't bother testing any of the products available for Windows because I'm using Macs but as I said in my post, there seem to be multiple versions of apps for Windows, many of them free, which will do the same thing as what I am happily using on my Mac. If someone wants to pay me, I will install some on my Windows guests and see which I think is best.