[vbox-dev] best place to handle taskbar notification from host to guest?

[Huihong Luo]

Right now, we are using guest property for the host to notify the guest of a taskbar icon event (e.g., taskbar button is clicked). namely, the guest wait for some events to occur,  then activate some windows inside the guest. However, it seems to be not responding well, perhaps guest property is too slow for such purpose? I noticed that it involving saving the machine xml file. So use guest property to track mouse events might be incorrect.
 
my question is where would be the best place? with least code changes.
 
I checked the code, there is a 
VMMDEV_EVENT_SEAMLESS_MODE_CHANGE_REQUEST from host to the guest in dealing with seamless mode. We can add another similar flag for taskbar events. In order to interact with VMMDev, we will need to add a method to a COM interface, IDisplay seems to be the place to add such thing.
 
This is the flow, when a user click a taskbar icon on host, the front end VirtualBox.exe will call IDisplay::NotifyGuestTaskBar(...), which signal VMMDEV_EVENT_SEAMLESS_MODE_TASKBAR_REQUEST. Inside the guest, VBoxTray.exe will check this event, and do something on the windows.
 
Another place to add such a method would be IGuest interface.
 
Any ideas?
 
Please spend some time on this, as it will save quite some efforts when you merge the code, and save time for us.
 
Thanks,
 
- huihong
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