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I've been searching for a way to get to the bottom portion of a dialogue box that spills below the edge of the screen. It's important that I get to it because it's where the save, default, cancel buttons are found. I've tried all sorts of shenanigans with move operations but none are working. I have also been looking for a way to make everything smaller but my screen resolution won't allow it (or I don't know if I'm looking in the right place).

I think a lot of people have had problems with actual windows (the ones that are resizable and can be pushed over the top edge) but this is a dialogue box that opens from within another window and I cannot push it further up from the edge.

I already have my taskbar placed to one side. I can confirm the buttons exist with some magnifying glass shenanigans but I have not been able to put them on screen.

OS: Windows 8.1

The dialogue box spills below the edge and cannot be accesed

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  • @James alt key huh? I haven't tried that one. The magnifying glass trick: use fullscreen mode and tab through all selectable elements, eventually hitting the ones that are off screen, the screen will scroll as it tries to horizontally center the content. That is how I confirmed such buttons exist
    – hanzo2001
    Feb 22, 2015 at 9:00

6 Answers 6

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Assuming you have a natively widescreen monitor:

It might sound silly but you need more vertical screen real estate so the only temporary solution would be to rotate your screen by 90 degrees.

Set the orientation to portrait and then reverse the resolution setting. In my screenshot I would need to set the resolution to 1200x1920 if I want to use portrait mode.

enter image description here

The ultimate solution is to get the software fixed or get a monitor with more vertical pixels.

Good luck!

6

This is really annoying and even worse if the title bar is outside of screen, so you cannot drag it.

The workaround I've been using is to install AutoHotKey and use EasyWindoDrag script. With that, you can drag the window or resize it by grabbing any part of window (using mouse), no only title bar or a corner. It works on every app I've tried.

As an added bonus, while you see a modal dialog, you can not only move that, but also move other windows of the app, which normally isn't possible.

You should get AHK anyway, it has a lot of cool stuff.

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  • Can you give it a try & see if it will drag a window above the top of the screen? That seems to be a sticking point for this window, it will move, but not above/beyond the top of the screen
    – Xen2050
    Feb 19, 2015 at 0:02
  • 1
    The script works by grabbing window by any pixel of the window, not just a corner. If you grab it by a bottom pixel, you can even move pretty most of the window off-screen (apart from the bottom pixel row). It works for all apps I've tried.
    – ya23
    Feb 20, 2015 at 13:26
  • That would be great if it can move the window higher, and it looks like it's open source too, +1
    – Xen2050
    Feb 20, 2015 at 13:33
5

Happens sometimes with programs that use a fixed size of windows, that unfortunately happens to be bigger than your desktop/screen size. Likely a poor programming decision, or written for a different/old version where they assumed a minimum screen size, or some screen setting that could be changed.

  • Sometimes the window could be resized and it might work

  • Maybe could move the window (maybe using the keyboard ALT+SPACE and arrow keys) to hide the top instead of the bottom

  • While using your magnifying workaround, memorize the number of TAB presses it takes to get from one known entry to another one. So maybe clicking on the filename entry, then pressing TAB 5 times will bring you to the Save button where you can press space/enter to save, even though you can't "see" it.

  • Change your screen resolution to something bigger (if there is one available), to fit the window. But that's a "poor"/clunky solution.

    Instructions for 8.1 don't seem to be easily available on the windows.microsoft.com website, but they have Vista & 7, they're very similar so should be very similar for 8.1:

    1. Open Screen Resolution by clicking the "Start button", clicking "Control Panel", and then, under "Appearance and Personalization", clicking "Adjust screen resolution".
    2. Click the drop-down list next to Resolution, move the slider to the resolution you want, and then click Apply.
    3. Click Keep to use the new resolution, or click Revert to go back to the previous resolution.

  • Or possibly you have desktop display scaling that's making your screen look "smaller" than it really is, read an older article "Hands-On with Windows 8.1: Desktop Display Scaling" that might be relevant.

  • If you have a second monitor, possibly setting it up to be "above" or "below" could let the extra-tall window "spill over" to the other monitor, but that's just an idea

  • Best solution's probably getting an updated version of the program that has decent-sized windows. Maybe bug the authors with a bug report, you're probably not the only user with that problem
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  • I am already bugging software maintainers. Also, this window cannot be resized or moved above the edge not even using the move window suggestion. Please expand on screen resolution. I have my settings to max-res and no other setting outputs more height than I already have. I don't know if the font-size inside programs is determined by the program itself, if I could change this it might help
    – hanzo2001
    Feb 18, 2015 at 11:25
  • edited a bit, but if it's maxed & drivers don't change it, I'm about out of ideas. Some windows just won't move above the top border, sometimes works on some linux window managers but that's no help to "windows". Your magnification tool/trick is at least a workaround
    – Xen2050
    Feb 18, 2015 at 11:48
  • I will keep this question on hold for a while. If no better solution comes up then I guess I'm screwed until your last point is a success.
    – hanzo2001
    Feb 18, 2015 at 12:07
  • Had another idea for a "blind tab" work around, with tab & space/enter so many times. The best one to actually see so far might be your magnification one...
    – Xen2050
    Feb 18, 2015 at 12:21
  • ...and in a burst of great answers he flies past the 2K line! Congrats.
    – fixer1234
    Feb 18, 2015 at 13:42
2

if you use Control+Alt+ you can rotate the screen to portrait, select your button, then change it back to normal with Control+Alt+.

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  • Creative temporary workaround.
    – Hennes
    Mar 30, 2016 at 11:17
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Download an app (in Firefox at least) called Infinite Screen. I had the same [rpblem and this fixes it. Simply install then hold Cntrl + Shift and move the window around with the touchpad, then move the screen back to its normal position.

Works every time.

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0

Try AltMove. Among other features, it can be configured to move and resize windows and controls which can not be normally moved. I've used this a lot on a netbook with a low native resolution, where buttons on windows are frequently placed offscreen.

For example, it can be configured to move a window by holding alt and dragging it with the left mouse button. This will allow you to drag a window up and view its contents that are hidden below.

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