Please Help Difficult Problem.

How would I output text to a fullscreen window ?? I can get the hwnd of the window and its DC, but i can't seem to output text to this window when its in fullscreen. I'm using the MCI api to play media files, and when i call the mci command to go fullscreen, i cannot output text to the window, why ?? I'm sure somebody here can help me out... I would like to use pure API to accomplish this, thanx.

AAG

Is it your app that's going full screen? I'm confused.. how do you use MCI commands to make something full-screen? If you want to output text to the desktop (the actual screen, on top of everything) you would use the TextOut API with the DC the desktop window:

VB Code:

GetDC(GetDesktopWindow)

That'll give you the DC you're looking for (probably!). I hope this helps, and good luck.

Open up windows media player, open a movie, right click on the video and hit fullscreen. This is exactly what i'm doing but thru the use of the MCI API. I have already tried textout by getting the dc of the video and it works when the video is in normal mode, but when i go fullscreen with this function

VB Code:

Public Function Play_Fullscreen(AliasName As String)
Dim cmdToDo As String * 128
cmdToDo = "play " & AliasName & " fullscreen"
Call mciSendString(cmdToDo, 0&, 0&, 0&) 'play
End Function

textout does not work. I've tried using a timer and doing textout every 1 ms, but still doesn't work.

Ah, you didnt mention you were doing a VIDEO. Sorry.

For your problem, you will probably have to change the way you draw the video, if you actually do. If MCI does it for you, you'll have to do it yourself, and make sure the TextOut API happens somewhere between there and blitting it to the screen.

Could you put a transparent form over everything (stay on top)and print text here?

no, yo don't seem to know how the MCI API works. anyways, i think i'll just stretch the video the whole screen and simply hide the taskbar or something and print the text since the video will still be in a window but look fullscreen. ooh well, maybe i'll figure out how to right to a video_overlay later. well thanx for the help, laterz....

Another thing you may have forgotten to mention: Video-OVERLAY. This means your card is doing the work, and you can't intervene in software. (usually) This is most likely what's happening, then.

If i can't intervene, then how are movie subtitles done. Its text being outputed to the screen. DVD's do it, and so do some movie players out there. If i were to ripp a dvd, i can also ripp its subtitles if they were available. Its simply a text file that contains each positions and then the text to output. I know its possible with direct X, but i've also seen some that do it without Direct X. Anyways, nevermind...