Request: Expose setAppUserModelID() api for Windows

[dobriai]

This is a Windows-specific request.

Groping of application icons in the Windows Task Bar is controlled by the AppUserModelID. We need to be able to set it explicitly in various cases - as icon grouping requirements demand.

I suppose one can just write some GYP and expose the API this way, but this looks like something that framework should provide out of the box.

Thanks!

[ghostoy]

@dobriai Could you show a sample of how you want to use this API?

[dobriai]

@ghostoy, I ... am not sure. My assumption was that somewhere, e.g. in window.onload() or some such, I'd just call gui.App.setAppUserModelID(some_string). I'd have to figure out what to use for a string for each specific case.

Is this too vague of an answer? If so, what more specifically do you want to see?

[ghostoy]

@dobriai Currently AUMID (App User Model ID) all windows within an app is set to '_crx_' + chrome.runtime.id by default. It's not documented, but it's implemented such. So they should be stacked in in one icon on taskbar. Could you post a sample app that's not?

[dobriai]

OK. I'll try to provide examples as soon as I get some time.

BTW, What is 'crx'?

[ghostoy]

crx is short for Chrome Extension.

[dobriai]

OK, maybe I should have made this clear from the very start - now I realize!

Here is the case: Prepare a directory with a trivial "Hello world!" example and in it start two nw.exe processes using different --user-data-dir arguments, e.g.:

/e/GitHub/appusermodelid/d1 > tree -dL 1
.
├── src
├── udir1
└── udir2

/e/GitHub/appusermodelid/d1 > /c/bin/nwjs-sdk-v0.18.0-win-x64/nw.exe --user-data-dir=udir1 src &
[2] 9212
/e/GitHub/appusermodelid/d1 > /c/bin/nwjs-sdk-v0.18.0-win-x64/nw.exe --user-data-dir=udir2 src &
[3] 28932

At that point the two processes' taskbar icons will not be grouped. Which I agree, may be the correct default behavior - i.e. this is desirable for many/most cases. But, there are situations in which one might want to have the two processes be treated as the same "group of windows" in the task bar.

Does the above make it clear?

Then, I am not even 100% sure that a setAppUserModelID() will do the trick I am after. It could be too late by the time the app starts?! I don't know. I suppose I can mock up something to test it...

[ghostoy]

AUMID (App User Model ID) could be per window or per process according to MSDN. NW.js used a multi-process model like Chromium. So if you want to set AUMID in pre process way, you have to call the API before showing any windows owned by the process. Therefore I prefer to implement in the per window way, so that developers won't need to know which process owned this window and you can set AUMID anytime.

The API implementation is included in PR #5374. With this patch, you can set AUMID via package.json, nw.Window.open(), nw.App.setDefaultAppUserModelID() and win.setAppUserModelID().

[ogimenezb]

Any news on this issue?