playing in windowed mode...

Howard Roark · 03/19/08, 5:23 AM

I just got a beautiful and gigantic new monitor and I want to take full advantage of letting WoW look the best it can, and I like the way WoW looks in full screen mode, but I always prefer playing in windowed mode because I constantly alt tab to a web browser (and I do mean constantly, sometimes between every global cooldown) or another program. I just play fully maxamized in windowed mode.

I guess I'm just a little bit OCD but the title bar and the taskbar at the top and bottom of the screen really annoy me- especially since I switched to a very minimalistic UI, they stand out a lot more. I do use auto-hide on the taskbar but even with that enabled there is still a bar showing on the bottom that is a few pixels tall.

Does anyone know of a way to either hide the windows title bar and the task bar, or have wow run in fullscreen mode but allow other windows to show on top of it and be able to switch to them as quickly as you can in windowed mode?

I don't even know what to type into google to research this. Best I can do is manually change the vertical position and stretch of the display on my actual monitor to hide them, but I obviously have to change it back later. I'm hoping there is a better solution. I suspect I can achieve this by changing the actual windows theme but I would like to avoid that if possible. I like the classic windows theme just fine.

Uhm · 03/19/08, 5:49 AM

If I understand it right you want to have your Windowed WoW filling your entire screen, right?

If so, simply select the "Maximized" checkbox under the "Windowed Mode" in your Video Options. That makes your WoW fill your entire screen, but still be fast when switching windows.

If you meant something else, ignore this post.

Edit: It's a checkbox, not a button.

Howard Roark · 03/19/08, 6:13 AM

Originally Posted by Uhm

If I understand it right you want to have your Windowed WoW filling your entire screen, right?

If so, simply select the "Maximized" checkbox under the "Windowed Mode" in your Video Options. That makes your WoW fill your entire screen, but still be fast when switching windows.

If you meant something else, ignore this post.

Edit: It's a checkbox, not a button.

Yeah I just asked around elsewhere and someone reccomended the same thing, but I don't have that option in my video options window. Oddly it IS there on my other computer's wow settings, but not this computer's one. On mine there is nothing between "windowed mode" and "use UI scale" like there is on my old computer. Am I missing something obvious or?

Edit: this is definitely what I was looking for though, I think.

Kulaar · 03/19/08, 6:19 AM

I think you need Maximizer | World of Warcraft Tools | Curse

Uhm · 03/19/08, 6:59 AM

Ah, that's odd then.. Maybe your video card/drivers don't support it? (Though that'd be strange..)

You could try bypassing the options and just put it in the config file and see how that works out? Just do back your settings up before doing that, maybe your pc really doesn't like it.

Go to your ..\World of Warcraft\WTF\ folder and find the file called "config.wtf". Open it in something like notepad and find the line that says:
SET gxWindow "0"
and change it to:
SET gxWindow "1"

It probably already is on "1" since you're playing in Windowed Mode, in that case you can leave it as that.
Next we can adapt it to enable the Maximized thing by finding the line with:

SET gxMaximize "0"
and change it to:
SET gxMaximize "1"

If that line is not in the file, add it under the gxWindow line.
Save the file and try again.

I found this bit of information in the following thread, it's not entirely about the same thing, but the settings still do the same thing.
WoW-Europe.com Forums -> Windowed Mode

As for the "Maximizer" thing suggested by Kulaar. It seems that it removes the borders and titlebar, but not the Windows Taskbar. It could be a setting though, didn't see anything about that.

I hope this works, because I can't find much by Blizzard about missing Video Options.

Rott · 03/19/08, 5:53 PM

To get the taskbar effect you're looking for you will want to right click on the taskbar and select "properties" than uncheck "always on top". When the WoW window is maximized it should cover the taskbar.

hypetech · 03/19/08, 6:39 PM

You can also right click the task bar, go to properties, and turn on the auto-hide feature, this way the task bar will only pop up while you hover over it. Other than perhaps using a program like WindowsBlinds and using a window skin to turn your title bar solid black with no buttons or text, I'm not sure how you would get rid of your title bar.

frost240z · 03/20/08, 11:31 AM

dude this is cake

adjust your screen so that the picture is bigger then the viewing arean. push the bar at the top off your screan and the bar the the bottum.

the bottum bar can go down just enough so you don't see your auto hid line but you can pull your mouse all the way down and have it pop up enough to click on anything you want. as for the top bar this will push all your "X" buttons for maximized windown out of site but you can get good and clicking on them without seeing them fairly quick.

NuclearFox · 03/20/08, 5:06 PM

Personally if you got a gigantic new monitor, and you have the desk space. Try playing with Dual monitors. Playing with a 24" 1920x1200 monitor on one side, and a 1600x1200 monitor on the other, means i dont have to alt tab ANYTHING when playing wow.

Try it, once you go dual, you will never go back.

wyldbill · 03/21/08, 5:44 PM

Originally Posted by NuclearFox

Personally if you got a gigantic new monitor, and you have the desk space. Try playing with Dual monitors. Playing with a 24" 1920x1200 monitor on one side, and a 1600x1200 monitor on the other, means i dont have to alt tab ANYTHING when playing wow.

Try it, once you go dual, you will never go back.

He still needs to be in "window mode" in order to move the mouse over to that other monitor. It's the same effect as alt-tab even though the target window doesn't cover any part of the game window.

I agree that multiple displays is superior, of course, but it doesn't actually solve this dude's problem. I think the windows taskbar setting is likely the cause; mine is windowed/maximized and doesn't show any title bar or other window decorations.

Bullshot · 03/22/08, 10:02 AM

I don't know how much this will help (if at all) since I have never played in Windowed Mode, but have you tried pressing the F11 key? By default, in Explorer, it maximises your window so that the top "taskbar" get hidden. It could work with WoW's window as well I suspect.

wyldbill · 03/22/08, 3:03 PM

Originally Posted by Bullshot

I don't know how much this will help (if at all) since I have never played in Windowed Mode, but have you tried pressing the F11 key? By default, in Explorer, it maximises your window so that the top "taskbar" get hidden. It could work with WoW's window as well I suspect.

That's a browser-specific feature (mirrored in firefox as well). The real "full screen toggle" for microsoft windows has always been alt+enter and that was, I believe, up to the application to support. I don't believe wow.exe toggles full screen on alt+enter.

stevejo · 03/22/08, 8:15 PM

Maybe this is obvious, however sometimes obvious is the right solution....

If you dont have "windowed mode" checked, you wont be able to check "Maximized"

Bullshot · 03/22/08, 9:36 PM

Originally Posted by wyldbill

That's a browser-specific feature (mirrored in firefox as well). The real "full screen toggle" for microsoft windows has always been alt+enter and that was, I believe, up to the application to support. I don't believe wow.exe toggles full screen on alt+enter.

I didn't mean "full-screen", I meant the maximise option that can be achieved by pressing the F11 key. And I didn't just mean Internet Explorer, but rather Explorer, as in the Windows Explorer. Pressing F11 maximises the window fully hiding the top bar. It should technically work when WoW is being run in windowed mode.

badMonkey · 03/23/08, 5:50 PM

Originally Posted by stevejo

Maybe this is obvious, however sometimes obvious is the right solution....

If you dont have "windowed mode" checked, you wont be able to check "Maximized"

I guess this dude's problem is that there is no "Maximized" checkbox.