Prompting an app running in tray to create first window

[potscrubber]

Hello folks

My AHK acript is working with a 3rd party app, which stays resident and has an icon in the tray. I use a hotkey to have this app show and hide it's window.

WinShow, WinActivate and WinHide all work fine with it - but only for subsequent show/hide actions. When the app is first run, I have to "manually" create/show the window first (by clicking on the tray icon), for subsequent WinShow, WinActivate's to work.

Until recently, I could just execute the app again and it wouldn't create a second process instance, but would show it's window. A recent update changed that and now I end up with multiple processes (bad).

Does anyone know any general way to prompt an app to create it's main window via post or sendmessage?

Many thanks for any help.

[swagfag]

use spy++ and observe what messages are generated when u click on the tray icon. then try send-/postmessaging some of them and see if it does something

[potscrubber]

Thanks for that swagfag, I just learnt something (Spy++).

Unfortunately, when focusing it's message capture on the aforementioned app main window or dominant ClassNN, it's as barren as a salt lake: not a single message. Compared to the voluminous flood of messages when focused on the Notepad window.

Are there any other methods I can probe this app? I managed to scrape it's menu wParam's with a GetMenu function I found, but nothing here creates the first window.

Thanks for any help!

[potscrubber]

I also found this helpful function / class. Not sure yet if it works in Win 11.