Unreal Editor always on top of taskbar

I have my task bar set to auto hide in Windows to maximize my screen real estate. When using the Unreal editior it sets a non-visible window to “Always on Top”. This is a deliberate setting. It interferes with screen managment. If this was a full screen game I could see the point but this is past annoying. There is no reason for this automatically be set outside of deliberate user choice.I tried toggling it using Process Hacker but it always turns itself back on.
The specific thread is:
UE4Editor.exe!InitializeModule+0x19b4

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Hey -

Could you post a screenshot to help me visualize what you’re saying? Are you referring to other editor windows (blueprint editor / material editor/ etc) being on top of the main viewport window or are you referring to the unreal editor itself being on top of other applications?

Cheers

I’m talking about the Unreal Editor itself. Which is why I referred to it as the “Unreal editor” in my original complaint. What kind of picture do you have in mind. How do I show a picture of something NOT happening? Seriously?
Here are the issues. This does not happen when I don’t use the editor in full screen mode. But if I don’t do this it will expand partly onto my second monitor (yes, there are a lot more problems - this was just at the top of my list). I have my taskbar (the region at the typically at the bottom of the screen in Windows that shows the Stater, active programs, clock, etc.) set to “Autohide”. This gives me more screen real estate (I have it expanded to two rows at the moment). That means it remains hidden at the bottom of the screen until I bring my cursor down to the bottom edge of the monitor when it will expand upwards. But if a program on that screen is full screen and has any of its windows set to “Always on Top” that program overrides the task bar from being on top instead.

Tell you what. I’m providing a screen shot. I can’t just do an Alt-Print Screen because that closes the context menu before capturing the screen so I’m showing BOTH monitors but look to the right side.

See that? Not visible but set to “Alway on Top”. This is interferring with the operations of my desktop. No reason for this setting but there it is. I’ve tried toggling it and restarting Explorer but it just resets itself. There is some code that is constantly checking the status of that hidden window and forcing the status. Why?

Hey -

I apologize, I did not understand your post initially. I thought you were referring to the editor being on top of other applications rather than the taskbar itself. I have submitted a report to investigate this behavior (UE-28451).

Cheers

Thanks, . I was surprised that this marked as “Answered” but I see why now. I’ve been finding a few other issues. Should I do a separate complaint for each one? They all seem related (though not of the “Always on Top” variety).

Yes, separate posts for separate issues, even if they are related, helps keep one issue from being buried in the details of another. It also helps others when searching for information on a specific issue.

This is still an issue? I see it has been backlogged. Seems kind of a major bug since it’s about proper interaction with the Windows UI.

Looking forward to having this fixed. Screen real estate is valuable. Gotta keep that taskbar hidden, but then gotta be able to get it to show up in the usual way.

Hey guys,

It appears someone else who was having this issue was able to create a fix that worked for them. You can find the information for his fix here: The editor hide the taskbar - Programming & Scripting - Epic Developer Community Forums

Great! I guess I should go back from Windows 10 to Windows 7 for a fix and have my taskbar on the left side. Wonderful solution! (Insert sarcasm here). There is no “information” there other than “I fixed it myself” with a link to an undocumented GitHub project.

Yeah, it’s still an issue.

Still an issue, Unreal 4.20.2 (the ‘quickfix’ linked below doesn’t work -anymore?-). Win7 x64 here, auto hiding taskbar. The issue again, for a better understand: moving the mouse to the bottom of the screen doesn’t show the task bar, one has to use LOGO key or ALT+TAB to get access to other windows. This is true (!!!)even if the Editor is not in full screen but windowed, even if e.g. in the middle of the screen(!!!).
It looks like it’s not just Unity with 2-3 or more years old bugs floating around :stuck_out_tongue:

This is such a frustrating issue. Haven’t been using Unreal Engine for a couple of years now and just installed it (4.25) again to play around with it a bit. But currently I am so annoyed by this behavior that I am considering to uninstall it right away… :frowning:

IIRC back then I disabled the taskbar’s auto-hide feature because it was better to work that way than with a blocked taskbar. Just upvoted the ticket, maybe it helps (although I am not too confident about it after 4 years and with UE5 being announced).

Man, 2020 and (Windows) software can’t handle taskbar on autohide :D. Is the same happening on Mac?

That five year old github code worked for me with Windows 10 Visual Studio, although I had to modify line 31 in LowLevelMouseProc to

if (pms->pt.y >= GetSystemMetrics(SM_CYSCREEN) - 2)

to check if the cursor’s at the bottom of the screen, and change the project setting “Project menu > Win7TaskbarFix Properties > Linker > System > SubSystem” from “Console” to “Windows (/SUBSYSTEM/WINDOWS)” to get it to compile using a Windows specific main function.

Note that the program has a task tray icon but no menu, so you have to kill it from the ctrl-alt-delete Task Manager when you’re done using UE Editor.

I can confirm that this bug still exists in the 2.46 version. It’s frustrating, especially when working with multiple windows, along with working in Visual Studio, and I’m honestly flabbergasted that it hasn’t been fixed yet.

Anyone know if there is a fix or workaround for this by now? As of 5.2.1 on Window 10 this is still a really annoying issue. I saw that Shift+F11 is supposed to toggle between Full Screen and Windowed modes, but besides a slight visual change on the window border, I experience no difference in behavior; the taskbar always remains blocked. My options if the window is maximized is to use the Windows key or Alt+Tab to another window. I can also keep the window at a size below maximized to avoid this issue, but that isn’t ideal either. This is probably going to remain too low priority to ever fix at this point, but it’s one of the first glaring annoyances that new users will encounter. If there is a setting somewhere in the preferences for this that I missed, I would love to know. Thanks

I guess there’s just not enough people using auto-hide.
This still stresses me out whenever I have to use unreal

I’m the guy who started this thread and it’s Unreal 5.3 and still not fixed. looking back I’m glad I’m not alone in this issue. It’s sad that the one apparent staff member who even glanced at this topic back then is now “anonymous_user_2b03d27c”!

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I have this issue too. Unlike other apps which only sometimes cover the taskbar, the Unreal Editor covers it all of the time. I have to auto-hide my taskbar as I was experiencing LCD image retention in that area prior to doing so.