C#•9mo ago

Resizing the Console window - Console Application

Hi there, I'm trying to resize the console window in a Console Application. I have tried multiple things and some samples from the MSDN to get this to work but so far didn't manage to get the console to work.

namespace ConsoleApp1
{
    internal class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Console.SetWindowSize(100, 100);
            Console.WriteLine("{0} , {1}",Console.WindowWidth, Console.WindowHeight);
            Console.ReadKey();

            Console.SetWindowSize(50, 50);
            Console.WriteLine("{0} , {1}", Console.WindowWidth, Console.WindowHeight);
        }
    }
}

namespace ConsoleApp1
{
    internal class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Console.SetWindowSize(100, 100);
            Console.WriteLine("{0} , {1}",Console.WindowWidth, Console.WindowHeight);
            Console.ReadKey();

            Console.SetWindowSize(50, 50);
            Console.WriteLine("{0} , {1}", Console.WindowWidth, Console.WindowHeight);
        }
    }
}

7 Replies

blackSheepOP•9mo ago

I'm using windows 11 and visual studio Community version 2022

Unknown User•9mo ago

Message Not Public

ZacharyPatten•9mo ago

what kind of program are you making? I like making console games and what I do is have a check to see if the window is large enough to render the current view. If it is not large enough then I just write "Please increase the size of the console window" rather than rendering the current view

blackSheepOP•9mo ago

I had this doubt it at the back of my mind and now it seems pretty clear what you just said. Thanks to take the time to answer 🙂 I planning to create a consolePad app (like a notepad Console version ) and one the things that I wanted was to have the size of that window to be resized.

ZacharyPatten•9mo ago

The main issue is that from my experience, the methods in the BCL for setting the console windows size are not cross platform and don't even work on all terminals in windows, such as Terminal. So I would recommend not trying to change the window size in your code, but rather let the user manage that, and jsut tell them if their window isn't large enough in other words... I wish Console.SetWindowSize worked, but it just doesn't 😛

Jester•9mo ago

to resize the console window in windows (but it has to be a console window, not the new terminal) you have to dll import some functions

var windowHandle = GetConsoleWindow();
SetWindowPos(windowHandle, default, posx, posy, width, heitht, flags);

var windowHandle = GetConsoleWindow();
SetWindowPos(windowHandle, default, posx, posy, width, heitht, flags);

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/console/getconsolewindow https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/winuser/nf-winuser-setwindowpos https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.runtime.interopservices.dllimportattribute?view=net-8.0

GetConsoleWindow function - Windows Console

Retrieves the window handle used by the console associated with the calling process.

SetWindowPos function (winuser.h) - Win32 apps

Changes the size, position, and Z order of a child, pop-up, or top-level window. These windows are ordered according to their appearance on the screen. The topmost window receives the highest rank and is the first window in the Z order.

DllImportAttribute Class (System.Runtime.InteropServices)

Indicates that the attributed method is exposed by an unmanaged dynamic-link library (DLL) as a static entry point.

Jester•9mo ago

@blackSheep

Gaming

Programming

Resizing the Console window - Console Application