How to Get the Taskbar's Position and Size

Get precise location and size of TaskBar

This is how:

[DllImport("user32.dll")]
public static extern IntPtr FindWindow(string lpClassName, string lpWindowName);

[DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
static extern bool GetWindowRect(IntPtr hwnd, out RECT lpRect);

[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
public struct RECT
{
    public int Left;        // x position of upper-left corner
    public int Top;         // y position of upper-left corner
    public int Right;       // x position of lower-right corner
    public int Bottom;      // y position of lower-right corner
}

How to get the location and size of taskbar:

//Get the handle of the task bar
IntPtr TaskBarHandle;
TaskBarHandle = FindWindow("Shell_traywnd", "");

RECT rct;

//Get the taskbar window rect in screen coordinates
GetWindowRect(TaskBarHandle, out rct);

UWP: How to get the TaskBar Height

Well!! So after a lot of searching on internet, seeing similar answers on stackoverflow and suggestions, It seems that calculating the TaskBar height in UWP application is not so straight or simple task. However for my situation I ended up with this work around which works fine. But I will continue to find a proper approach. Assuming my screen resolution is 1600x900 ,So here is what I did:

    private void GetScreenDimension()
    {

        //To get Screen Measurements e.g. height, width, X,Y...
        ApplicationView view = ApplicationView.GetForCurrentView();
        //Getting the Window Title Bar height(In my case I get :Top=32,Bottom=860)
        double titleBarHeight = view.VisibleBounds.Top;
        //Getting the TaskBar Height
        double taskBarHeight = view.VisibleBounds.Top + (view.VisibleBounds.Top / 4);
        //Getting the workable Height of the screen ( excluding Task Bar Height)
        double availableheight = GridTimelineContent.ActualHeight - taskBarHeight;
        double availablewidth = GridTimelineContent.ActualWidth;

        if (_viewModel != null)
        {
            _viewModel.AvailableHeight = availableheight;
            _viewModel.AvailableWidth = availablewidth;
            //Getting the actual Physical height (i.e including TitleBar Height and Task Bar Height, gives 900 in my case which is what I wanted)                              
            _viewModel.ActualScreenHeight = view.VisibleBounds.Height + titleBarHeight + taskBarHeight;

            _viewModel.PageWidth = (this as Page).ActualWidth;

        }
    }

Please Note:

1) When I run the application with TaskBar Locked(visible), I get view.VisibleBounds.Height as 828.

2) When I run the application with TaskBar AutoHidden(Invisible), I get view.VisibleBounds.Height as 868.

Which gave me an idea that 900-868=32 could be Tittle Bar Height, and as I jumped from 828 to 868 after hiding the Task Bar means 868-828=40 could be the Task Bar Height.

Conclusion:

Title Bar Height = view.VisibleBounds.Top (Which is 32)

Task Bar Height = view.VisibleBounds.Top (Which is 32) + (view.VisibleBounds.Top / 4)(Which is 8);(32+8 = Total 40)

Remainning Height = view.VisibleBounds.Height (Which is 828)

If I combine the above three, I get 900 (Required Height) using this line of code:

_viewModel.ActualScreenHeight = view.VisibleBounds.Height + titleBarHeight + taskBarHeight;

I hope it's useful for others too.
Thanks!!

Taskbar width, height and position

Well, since this question is composed on how to get the task bar coordinates I've decided to post another version of how to achieve this by using SHAppBarMessage function with ABM_GETTASKBARPOS message parameter.

I've posted two versions; one with and one without given task bar handle. Note that if you are sending ABM_GETTASKBARPOS message you should specify the hWnd member in the APPBARDATA structure as it's mentioned in the ABM_GETTASKBARPOS description. So the first version is safe for this case. The second one works though but it's formally wrong.

uses ShellAPI;

procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
var
  Data: TAppBarData;
begin
  Data.hWnd := FindWindow('Shell_TrayWnd', nil);
  Data.cbSize := SizeOf(TAppBarData);

  if Data.hWnd <> 0 then
    if SHAppBarMessage(ABM_GETTASKBARPOS, Data) = 1 then
      ShowMessage(
                      'Left: ' + IntToStr(Data.rc.Left) + 'px ; ' +
                      'Top: ' + IntToStr(Data.rc.Top) + 'px ; ' +
                      'Width: ' + IntToStr(Data.rc.Right - Data.rc.Left) + 'px ; ' +
                      'Height: ' + IntToStr(Data.rc.Bottom - Data.rc.Top) + 'px'
                  );
end;

Note that this version (where the TAppBarData.hWnd member is not specified) works though but it's wrong according to the MSDN.

procedure TForm1.Button2Click(Sender: TObject);
var
  Data: TAppBarData;
begin
  Data.cbSize := SizeOf(TAppBarData);

  if SHAppBarMessage(ABM_GETTASKBARPOS, Data) = 1 then
    ShowMessage(
                    'Left: ' + IntToStr(Data.rc.Left) + 'px ; ' +
                    'Top: ' + IntToStr(Data.rc.Top) + 'px ; ' +
                    'Width: ' + IntToStr(Data.rc.Right - Data.rc.Left) + 'px ; ' +
                    'Height: ' + IntToStr(Data.rc.Bottom - Data.rc.Top) + 'px'
                );
end;

Windows 10 task bar location

You can obtain the screen insets for a given screen device using java.awt.Toolkit.

For the primary screen:

GraphicsEnvironment ge = GraphicsEnvironment.getLocalGraphicsEnvironment();
GraphicsDevice defaultScreenDevice = ge.getDefaultScreenDevice();
GraphicsConfiguration defaultConfiguration = defaultScreenDevice.getDefaultConfiguration();
Insets screenInsets = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenInsets(defaultConfiguration);

Insets for my primary screen (using Windows 10):

java.awt.Insets[top=0,left=0,bottom=40,right=0]

Therefore, the task bar is 40 pixels height, and at the bottom of the screen.

Get Taskbar Position?

Use SHAppBarMessage to get the location of the taskbar:

SHAppBarMessage(ABM_GETTASKBARPOS, appBarData);

That, along with the size of the "primary" monitor:

nScreenWidth := GetSystemMetrics(SM_CXSCREEN);
nScreenHeight := GetSystemMetrics(SM_CYSCREEN);

and you can work out if the Taskbar is located at the

• top
• left
• bottom
• right

of the screen, and its size.

{Calculate taskbar position from its window rect. However,
 on XP it may be that the taskbar is slightly larger or smaller than the
 screen size. Therefore we allow some tolerance here.
}
if NearlyEqual(rcTaskbar.Left, 0, TASKBAR_X_TOLERANCE) and
        NearlyEqual(rcTaskbar.Right, nScreenWidth, TASKBAR_X_TOLERANCE) then
begin
    // Taskbar is on top or on bottom
    if NearlyEqual(rcTaskbar.Top, 0, TASKBAR_Y_TOLERANCE) then
        FTaskbarPlacement := ABE_TOP
    else
        FTaskbarPlacement := ABE_BOTTOM;
end
else
begin
    // Taskbar is on left or on right
    if NearlyEqual(rcTaskbar.Left, 0, TASKBAR_X_TOLERANCE) then
        FTaskbarPlacement := ABE_LEFT
    else
        FTaskbarPlacement := ABE_RIGHT;
end;

With that you can pop up your toast:

case FTaskbarPlacement of
ABE_RIGHT:
   begin
      Self.Left := rcTaskbar.Left-Self.Width;
      Self.Top := rcTaskbar.Bottom - Self.Height;
   end;
ABE_LEFT:
   begin
      Self.Left := rcTaskbar.Right;
      Self.Top := rcTaskbar.Bottom - Self.Height;
   end;
 ABE_TOP:
    begin
       Self.Left := rcTaskbar.Right - Self.Height;
       Self.Top := rcTaskbar.Bottom;
    end;
 else //ABE_BOTTOM
    // Taskbar is on the bottom or Invisible
    Self.Left := rcTaskbar.Right - Self.Width;
    Self.Top := rcTaskbar.Top - Self.Height;
 end;

How would I find the height of the task bar?

You get it from GetMonitorInfo(), MONITORINFOEX.rcWork member.

Get the HMONITOR that you need to call this function from, say, MonitorFromRect(), passing your window rectangle. Or MonitorFromPoint() or EnumDisplayMonitors(), depends where you want to display your window. (0,0) is always the upper left corner of the primary monitor.

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