Tiny Hot Corners for Windows 10

In GNOME 3 whenever you move the mouse to the top left corner, GNOME switches to the activities view, it looks like this:

Gnome Activities

Whenever I'm using Windows 10, I always forget that this doesn't work. Bleh.

I searched around for existing solutions, and wasn't happy with anything I could find.

The options seem to be

Some ridiculous AutoHotKey monstrosity (?!?).
Massive Delphi application with 100MB of resources.
Some naive program that polls GetCursorPos() in a busy loop.

None of these are what I want, I just want that GNOME 3 thing with absolute minimal overhead.

This is a very minimal hotcorner app, written in C. You can adjust parameters, delays, bindings easily and recompile.

Zero state is stored anywhere, no registry keys or configuration files.

If you want to configure something, edit the code and recompile.
If you want to uninstall it, just delete it.

Instructions

Change any of the parameters, compile, then install.

A binary is available here if you prefer.

Building

> nmake

Installing

> copy hotcorner.exe "%USERPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs\Startup"

(or nmake install)

Uninstalling

> del "%USERPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\hotcorner.exe"

(or nmake uninstall)

If you don't have cl or nmake, they come with Visual Studio (or the Windows SDK, I think).

Additionally, it is possible to build hotcorner on Linux using MinGW.

$ x86_64-w64-mingw32-windres version.rc -O coff -o version.res $ x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc -O2 hotcorner.c version.res -o hotcorner.exe -Wl,-subsystem,windows

Configuration

All configuration requires modifying the parameters in hotcorner.c and recompiling.

RECT kHotcorner - The coordinates of the hot zone.
INPUT kCornerInput[] - Input sent on activation.
DWORD kHotKeyModifiers - Modifier Keys (shift, alt, ctrl, etc) you want to enable the hotkey function.
DWORD kHotDelay - How long the pointer must wait in the corner before being activated.

License

GPL3

Authors

Tavis Ormandy @taviso - Original Author
Ahmed Samy @asamy - HotKey support

Variations

I've made a deliberate decision to keep hotcorner as simple as possible, here are some variations that other users have made that suit their needs better.

Trigger the start menu with mouse in the lower left corner, by @misterchaos
Multi-monitor support, by @Ortega-Dan and @mrowqa

FAQ

Q: I don't want to compile it, can't you just give me an exe? :(
A: Checkout the releases, here.
Q: Can you change a setting, and then compile it for me?
A: No.
Q: This doesn't work with my Application/Configuration/Whatever!
A: File an issue, if it's feasible to workaround I'll try.
Q: How do I turn it off without rebooting?
A: You can use CTRL+ALT+C to completely shut down the application.
Q: Why doesn't it work if my current program is running as an Administrator?
A: UIPI. I suppose you could "Run As Administrator" if it bothers you.

taviso / hotcorner

readme