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In my working environment I can have up to 10 command prompt windows open, each one set up to work in a different context. Having all of them open, I find myself having to switch between several of them to find the right one that I want to work with.
I am already setting different foreground and background colors of each window based on some criteria, but it would be much more easier to distinguish between them by having a different colored icon in the taskbar. That way, I would not even have to maximize/bring them to focus to find the right one from the get-go.
Is there a way that I can change the taskbar icon of the currently running command prompt window programmatically by executing batch commands in it?
There is no "built-in" way to do that, like there is the color command from cmd.exe to change the colors.
You could either search the internet for some utilitiy, or roll your own, for example in C#, by invoking the SetConsoleIcon Win32 API. Note however, that this API is not officially documented, YMMV.
using System;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
class Program
{
[DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
private static extern uint SetConsoleIcon(IntPtr iconHandle);
static void Main(string[] args)
{
if (args[0].Equals("--reset", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
{
SetConsoleIcon(IntPtr.Zero);
}
else
{
// Use this to load an icon from an icon file instead:
// var icon = new Icon(args[0]); // load from .ico file
// Extract icon from given executable/dll.
using (var icon = Icon.ExtractAssociatedIcon(args[0]))
{
if (icon != null)
SetConsoleIcon(icon.Handle);
}
}
}
}
You should be able to compile this using csc.exe setconico.cs (assuming you named the file setconico.cs). This will generate setconico.exe, which you can use like this:
Set the current console icon of the console you run this in, to the icon of notepad.exe
c:\> setconico.exe c:\windows\notepad.exe
You might also be able to write the above code in PowerShell, if you don't want to compile a separate utility.
I'm trying to create a small window manager (just for fun), but I'm having problems in handling windows created by Firefox (only with that application, other apps works fine)
The problem is, after I launch Firefox, and add my decoration, it seems to work fine, but if for example I try to click on the menu button, the (sub)window doesn't appear.
What seems to happen is that after the click, a ClientMessage event is fired with the following values:
Data: (null)
Data: _NET_WM_STATE_HIDDEN
Data: (null)
Data: (null)
Data: (null)
Now the problem is that I don't know how to show the window, which window.
I tried with:
XRaiseWindow
XMapWindow
I tried to get the transient window and show it
But without success. What I don't understand is that if this client message is generated by the menu subwindow or not.
How should I show a window that is in _NET_WM_STATE_HIDDEN?
Another strange problem is that after receiving the ClientMessage, I always receive 2 UnMapNotify Events.
I also have another question, if I want to show the "File, Edit" menù (in Firefox it appears, if I remember correctly, when you press the Alt button.
Maybe Firefox creates a tree of windows?
This is the loop where I handle the events:
while(1){
XNextEvent(display, &local_event);
switch(local_event.type){
case ConfigureNotify:
configure_notify_handler(local_event, display);
break;
case MotionNotify:
motion_handler(local_event, display);
break;
case CreateNotify:
cur_win = local_event.xcreatewindow.window;
char *window_name;
XFetchName(display, cur_win, &window_name);
printf("Window name: %s\n", window_name);
if(window_name!=NULL){
if(!strcmp(window_name, "Parent")){
printf("Adding borders\n");
XSetWindowBorderWidth(display, cur_win, BORDER_WIDTH);
}
XFree(window_name);
}
break;
case MapNotify:
map_notify_handler(local_event,display, infos);
break;
case UnmapNotify:
printf("UnMapNotify\n");
break;
case DestroyNotify:
printf("Destroy Event\n");
destroy_notify_handler(local_event,display);
break;
case ButtonPress:
printf("Event button pressed\n");
button_handler(local_event, display, infos);
break;
case KeyPress:
printf("Keyboard key pressed\n");
keyboard_handler(local_event, display);
break;
case ClientMessage:
printf("------------ClientMessage\n");
printf("\tMessage: %s\n", XGetAtomName(display,local_event.xclient.message_type));
printf("\tFormat: %d\n", local_event.xclient.format);
Atom *atoms = (Atom *)local_event.xclient.data.l;
int i =0;
for(i=0; i<=5; i++){
printf("\t\tData %d: %s\n", i, XGetAtomName(display, atoms[i]));
}
int nchild;
Window *child_windows;
Window parent_window;
Window root_window;
XQueryTree(display, local_event.xclient.window, &root_window, &parent_window, &child_windows, &nchild);
printf("\tNumber of childs: %d\n", nchild);
break;
}
Now in the clientmessage actually I'm just trying to see collect some information to understand what is happening. And what I can see from the code above, is that the window that raised the event contains one child (again: is that the menu? or not?)
The code for the MapNotify event, where I add the decoration is the following:
void map_notify_handler(XEvent local_event, Display* display, ScreenInfos infos){
printf("----------Map Notify\n");
XWindowAttributes win_attr;
char *child_name;
XGetWindowAttributes(display, local_event.xmap.window, &win_attr);
XFetchName(display, local_event.xmap.window, &child_name);
printf("\tAttributes: W: %d - H: %d - Name: %s - ID %lu\n", win_attr.width, win_attr.height, child_name, local_event.xmap.window);
Window trans = None;
XGetTransientForHint(display, local_event.xmap.window, &trans);
printf("\tIs transient: %ld\n", trans);
if(child_name!=NULL){
if(strcmp(child_name, "Parent") && local_event.xmap.override_redirect == False){
Window new_win = draw_window_with_name(display, RootWindow(display, infos.screen_num), "Parent", infos.screen_num,
win_attr.x, win_attr.y, win_attr.width, win_attr.height+DECORATION_HEIGHT, 0,
BlackPixel(display, infos.screen_num));
XMapWindow(display, new_win);
XReparentWindow(display,local_event.xmap.window, new_win,0, DECORATION_HEIGHT);
set_window_item(local_event.xmap.window, new_win);
XSelectInput(display, local_event.xmap.window, StructureNotifyMask);
printf("\tParent window id: %lu\n", new_win);
put_text(display, new_win, child_name, "9x15", 10, 10, BlackPixel(display,infos.screen_num), WhitePixel(display, infos.screen_num));
}
}
XFree(child_name);
}
Now can someone help me with these problems? Unfortunately I already googled many times, but without success.
To sum up, my issues are two:
1. How to show subwindows from Firefox
2. How to show the File, Edit menu.
UPDATE
I noticed something strange testing Firefox with xev to understand what events are fired in order to show an application. I saw that using Firefox in unity, and using Firefox in another window manger, the events fired are completely different. In Unity I have only:
ClientMessage
UnmapNotify
Instead using Firefox, for example with xfce4, the xevents generated are more:
VisiblityNotify (more than one)
Expose event (more than one)
But if I try to enable VisibilityChangeMask in my wm, I receive the following events:
ConfigureNotify
ClientMessage
MapNotify
2 UnMapNotify
UPDATE 2
I tried to read the XWMhints properties in the ClientMessage window (probably the menù window) and the values are:
For the flags 67 = InputHint, StateHint, WIndowGroupHint
For the initial state NormalState
UPDATE 3
I tried to look how another window manager works, and I was looking at the source code of calmwm. What is my understanding is that, when the ClientMessage event arrives, with a _NET_WM_STATE message, it updates these properties, and in the case of _NET_WM_STATE_HIDDEN it clears this property, and the result will be that the property will be deleted. So I tried to update my code to delete that property, but it's still not working. Anyway the relevant updated code in client_message_handler now looks like this:
Atom *atoms = (Atom *)local_event.xclient.data.l;
int i =0;
for(i=0; i<=5; i++){
printf("\t\tData %d: %s\n", i, XGetAtomName(display, atoms[i]));
if(i==1){
printf("\t Deleting Property: _NET_WM_STATE_HIDDEN \n");
XDeleteProperty(display, cur_window, atoms[i]);
}
}
It is only a test, and I'm sure that i=1 in my case is the _NET_WM_STATE_HIDDEN property.
Here a link to calmwm source code: https://github.com/chneukirchen/cwm/blob/linux/xevents.c
So I'm still stuck at that point.
UPDATE 4
Really I don't know if it helps, but I tried to read the window attributes in the MapNotify Event, and the window map_state is IsViewable (2).
UPDATE 5
I found a similar problem here in SO, using xlib with python: Xlib python: cannot map firefox menus
The solution suggests to use XSetInputFocus, i tried that on my XMapNotify handler:
XSetInputFocus(display, local_event.xmap.window, RevertToParent, CurrentTime);
But it still doesn't help, the firefox menu still doesn't appear!!
And i have the same problem with right-click.
UPDATE 6
Playing with xconfigurenotify event and unmap event i found that the:
Xconfigure request has 2 window fields: window and above, and when the
the xconfigurerequest.window value is the same of xunmap.window value.
And also that the xconfigurerequest.above is always changing, but xconfigurerequest.window is always the same in all events.
It seems that the xconfigurerequest.above is related to what menu i'm trying to open. For example:
if right-click on a page i get an id (always the same for every subsequent click)
if i right-clik on a tab, the above value is another one
and the same happen if i left-click the firefox main menu
Still don't know if that helps.
Really don't know
Anyone got any idea?
This question is ancient but for the benefit of anyone who stumbles across it looking for an answer to this, here's an edited (chopped to bits) sample of how I solved this based on the hints above:
while (event = xcb_poll_for_event(connection)) {
uint8_t actual_event = event->response_type & 127;
switch (actual_event) {
case XCB_MAP_NOTIFY: ;
xcb_map_notify_event_t *map_evt = (xcb_map_notify_event_t *)event;
if (map_evt->override_redirect) {
xcb_get_property_cookie_t cookie = xcb_icccm_get_wm_transient_for(connection, map_evt->window);
xcb_window_t transient_for = 0;
xcb_icccm_get_wm_transient_for_reply(connection, cookie, &transient_for, NULL);
if (transient_for) {
xcb_set_input_focus(connection, XCB_INPUT_FOCUS_POINTER_ROOT, transient_for, XCB_CURRENT_TIME);
}
xcb_flush(connection);
}
break;
case XCB_CLIENT_MESSAGE: ;
xcb_client_message_event_t *message_evt = (xcb_client_message_event_t *)event;
xcb_get_atom_name_cookie_t name_cookie = xcb_get_atom_name(connection, message_evt->type);
xcb_get_atom_name_reply_t *name_reply = xcb_get_atom_name_reply(connection, name_cookie, NULL);
int length = xcb_get_atom_name_name_length(name_reply);
char *atom_name = malloc(length + 1);
strncpy(atom_name, xcb_get_atom_name_name(name_reply), length);
atom_name[length] = '\0';
free(atom_name);
free(name_reply);
if (message_evt->type == ewmh->_NET_WM_STATE) {
xcb_atom_t atom = message_evt->data.data32[1];
unsigned int action = message_evt->data.data32[0];
xcb_get_atom_name_cookie_t name_cookie = xcb_get_atom_name(connection, atom);
xcb_get_atom_name_reply_t *name_reply = xcb_get_atom_name_reply(connection, name_cookie, NULL);
int length = xcb_get_atom_name_name_length(name_reply);
char *atom_name = malloc(length + 1);
strncpy(atom_name, xcb_get_atom_name_name(name_reply), length);
atom_name[length] = '\0';
if (action == XCB_EWMH_WM_STATE_REMOVE) {
if (atom == ewmh->_NET_WM_STATE_HIDDEN) {
xcb_delete_property(connection, message_evt->window, ewmh->_NET_WM_STATE_HIDDEN);
}
}
free(atom_name);
free(name_reply);
}
break;
}
}
By way of explanation, the important events to handle are MapNotify and ClientMessage because there's two main things that have to be taken care of, the window has to have its hidden state removed on request (the xcb_delete_property call) and the parent window of the transient has to gain input focus (the xcb_set_input_focus call; note that the window that the transient is a transient for gains focus, not the transient itself) or Firefox will immediately hide the transient again.
It also seems to be important for the transients to be stacked above their parent so a WM should respect the ConfigureRequest events.
PS Even if this is the accepted answer, the code of it is for xcb, if you need the code for xlib check my answer below, with the code adapted for xlib, it does cover only the MapNotify event
Use xtruss — an easy-to-use X protocol tracing program
Overview
Any programmer accustomed to writing programs on Linux or System V-type Unixes will have encountered the program variously known as strace or truss, which monitors another program and produces a detailed log of every system call the program makes – in other words, all the program's interactions with the OS kernel. This is often an invaluable debugging tool, and almost as good an educational one.
When it's a GUI program (or rather, the GUI-related behaviour of a program) that you want to understand or debug, though, the level of interaction with the OS kernel is rarely the most useful one. More helpfully, one would like to log all the program's interactions with the X server in the same way.
Programs already exist that will do this. I'm aware of Xmon and Xtrace. But they tend to require a lot of effort to set up: you have to run the program to establish a listening server, then manually arrange for the target program to contact that instead of the real server – including some fiddly work with xauth. Ideally, you'd like tracing a program's X operations to be just as easy as tracing its kernel system calls: you'd like to type a command as simple as strace program-name arguments, and have everything automatically handled for you.
Also, the output of those programs is less easy to read than I'd have liked – by which I largely mean it's less like strace than I'd like it to be. strace has the nice property of putting each system call and its return value on the same line of output, so that you can see at a glance what each response was a response to. X protocol monitors, however, tend to follow the structure of the X protocol faithfully, meaning that each request and response is printed with a sequence number, and you have to match the two up by eye.
So this page presents xtruss, my own contribution to the field of X protocol loggers. It has a command-line syntax similar to strace – in its default mode, you just prefix "xtruss" to the same command line you would have run anyway – and its output format is also more like strace, putting requests and responses on the same line of output where reasonably possible.
strace also supports the feature of attaching to an already-running process and tracing it from the middle of its run – handy when something goes wrong with a long-running process that you didn't know in advance you were going to need to trace. xtruss supports this same feature, by means of the X RECORD extension (provided your X server supports it, which modern X.Org ones do); so in that mode, you can identify a window with the mouse (similarly to standard programs like xwininfo and xkill), and xtruss will attach to the X client program that owns the window you specified, and begin tracing it.
Description
xtruss is a utility which logs everything that passes between the X server and one or more X client programs. In this it is similar to xmon(1), but intended to combine xmon's basic functionality with an interface much more similar to strace(1).
Like xmon, xtruss in its default mode works by setting up a proxy X server, waiting for connections to that, and forwarding them on to the real X server. However, unlike xmon, you don't have to deal with any of that by hand: there's no need to start the trace utility in one terminal and manually attach processes to it from another, unless you really want to (in which case the -P option will do that). The principal mode of use is just to type xtruss followed by the command line of your X program; xtruss will automatically take care of adjusting the new program's environment to point at its proxy server, and (also unlike xmon) it will also take care of X authorisation automatically.
As an alternative mode of use, you can also attach xtruss to an already-running X application, if you didn't realise you were going to want to trace it until it had already been started. This mode requires cooperation from the X server – specifically, it can't work unless the server supports the RECORD protocol extension – but since modern X.Org servers do provide that, it's often useful.
Ok, i'm going to answer my own question after only 4.5 years and half.
I'm going to revise Mr Lightning Bolt answer, and adapt it for XLIB, keeping focused on what he said about the Transient window. The answer probably will not be complete, but at least with that code snippet, now i'm able to open firefox menus.
I will accept his question, since he proposed the correct solution.
As lightning bolt pointed the key is the MapNotify Event,so the window manager should accept that kind of events, and when it is generated it should:
grab any transient window with XGetTransientWindowForHint
if any transient window is found, we need then to set input focus to it using XSetInputFocus.
The complete code, in your MapNotifyHandler, should looks like:
Window trans = None;
XGetTransientForHint(display, local_event.xmap.window, &trans);
if(trans != None){
XSetInputFocus(display, trans, RevertToParent, CurrentTime);
}
I want to write an application that will automatically detect and fill the text field in the window shown below:
(assuming the data to be entered is in a file).
The question is how does my application find this text field?
I can do this job if I am able to find the location of the text field on the desktop through program.
Can someone help me understand possible ways for finding this text field?
I am using Windows Form application in C++.
Update:
I played with spy++.
I used spy++, to find the window handle. I did it by putting finder on the window I am interested in. Its giving handle in hex values: 00080086 (actually just for testing purpose I put the finder tool on Visual Studio new project page ). How do I interpret this Hex value into meaningful window name ?
See the below figure.
What is the next step to get to the text field " Enter name" under "name" field.
****Any sample code will be highly appreciated.**
I am open to any solution not necessarily how I am doing this.
One solution is to use the Microsoft UI Automation technology. It's shipped out-of-the-box with Windows since Vista. It's usable from .NET but also from C++ using COM.
Here is a short C++ console application example that displays the class name of the UI Automation Element currently at the middle of the desktop window, each second (you can have it run and see what it displays):
int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{
CoInitialize(NULL);
IUIAutomation *pAutomation; // requires Uiautomation.h
HRESULT hr = CoCreateInstance(__uuidof(CUIAutomation), NULL, CLSCTX_INPROC_SERVER, __uuidof(IUIAutomation), (LPVOID *)&pAutomation);
if (SUCCEEDED(hr))
{
RECT rc;
GetWindowRect(GetDesktopWindow(), &rc);
POINT center;
center.x = (rc.right - rc.left) / 2;
center.y = (rc.bottom - rc.top) / 2;
printf("center x:%i y:%i'\n", center.x, center.y);
do
{
IUIAutomationElement *pElement;
hr = pAutomation->ElementFromPoint(center, &pElement);
if (SUCCEEDED(hr))
{
BSTR str;
hr = pElement->get_CurrentClassName(&str);
if (SUCCEEDED(hr))
{
printf("element name:'%S'\n", str);
::SysFreeString(str);
}
pElement->Release();
}
Sleep(1000);
}
while(TRUE);
pAutomation->Release();
}
CoUninitialize();
return 0;
}
From this sample, what you can do is launch the application you want to automate and see if the sample detects it (it should).
You could also use the UISpy tool to display the full tree of what can be automated in your target app. You should see the windows and other elements (text field) of this target app and you should see the element displayed by the console application example.
From the pElement discovered in the sample, you can call FindFirst with the proper condition (class name, name, control type, etc...) to get to the text field. From this text field, you would use one of the UI Automation Patterns that should be available (probably TextPattern or ValuePattern) to get or set the text itself.
The cool thing is you can use the UISpy tool to check all this is possible before actually coding it.
You could enumerate windows and then find it.
For exploring application on your screenshot you could you Spy++ (spyxx.exe) that is distributed with visual studio. In you code, you clould use EnumWindows and EnumChildWindows to enumerates all window or all child windows to find one you need.
Although the answer given by Simon is accepted and is the best one, but still for future visitors I am providing this link which has more description for UI automation of windows applications. .
Also for automating a web application one may want to go to this link
I'm trying to use the following code to press a button on my other application:
HWND ButtonHandle;
if( (wnd = FindWindow(0, "Do you want to save?")) )
{
ButtonHandle = FindWindowEx(wnd, 0, "SaveButton", "&Save");
SendMessage(wnd, WM_COMMAND, MAKEWORD(GetDlgCtrlID(ButtonHandle), BN_CLICKED ), (LPARAM)ButtonHandle);
}
It doesn't work. I tried passing different handles to MAKEWORD and to change the WPARM and LPARAM but nothing.
Any ideas on how to click a button on another application's window?
Code is appreciated.
Thanks.
EDIT:
The reason it doesn't seem to work permissions. I sent a PostMessage() and the result was an error with GetLastError() = 5 (or Access Denied).
Any ideas?
EDIT2 I don't mean to be rude but please please please, I already searched all the API's including getting and setting the regions for the button and then sending a button down and button up, getting the control ID, getting the class ID and a zillion more.
The reason I asked the question here in the first place is because I already exhausted my search on the internet.
If you know the answer PLEASE POST CODE, do not suggest an API and that's it, show me how does that API solves the problem. It's not hard.
thank you.
EDIT 3: The question's answer was selected automatically when the bounty finished. The question still remains without an answer.
Are you sure that "SaveButton" class name is valid? Do you get the button
handle?
Try to send messages to ButtonHandle window (directly to the button).
Update: I believe this should work,
SendMessage(ButtonHandle, BM_CLICK, 0, 0);
See the following solution, also you can use
SendMessage(ButtonHandle, WM_LBUTTONDOWN, 0, 0);
SendMessage(ButtonHandle, WM_LBUTTONUP, 0, 0);
Or
SendMessage(ButtonHandle, BM_CLICK, 0, 0);
HWND buttonHandle = 0;
BOOL CALLBACK GetButtonHandle(HWND handle, LPARAM)
{
char label[100];
int size = GetWindowTextA(handle,label,sizeof(label));
if(strcmp(label,"&Save") == 0)
{
buttonHandle = handle;
return false;
}
return true;
}
void main()
{
HWND windowHandle = FindWindowA(NULL,"Do you want to Save?");
if(windowHandle != 0)
{
BOOL ret = EnumChildWindows(windowHandle,GetButtonHandle,0);
if(buttonHandle != 0)
{
LRESULT res = SendMessage(buttonHandle,BM_CLICK,0,0);
//SendMessage(buttonHandle,WM_LBUTTONDOWN,0,0);
//SendMessage(buttonHandle,WM_LBUTTONUP,0,0);
}
}
}
Note:
Getting sure from the window text,button text (check if there is space at the end of the window title)
SendMessage(btnHandle, WM_LBUTTONDOWN, 0, 0);
SendMessage(btnHandle, WM_LBUTTONUP, 0, 0);
SendMessage(btnHandle, WM_LBUTTONDOWN, 0, 0);
SendMessage(btnHandle, WM_LBUTTONUP, 0, 0);
You have to send a button click twice. Not sure why (maybe the first click only activates the window of the button), but I'm using this code for a long time and it always worked for me.
maybe this can help:
http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/beginner/8806/
Access Denied errors on SendMessage or PostMessage make no sense unless the process sending the message is running at a lower integrity level than the target process.
This should not be happening unless the process that owns the target window is being run "asAdministrator" or is a service. And its damn hard for services to create windows on the interactive desktop with Windows 6 and up.
You can do some reading about Integrity Levels Here if they apply even remotely to this situation. Internet Explorer is about the only other application that 'opts in' to the integrity security model by purposely lowering the integrity level of itself in order to sandbox itself more effectively.
If you can raise the window containing the button you can send raw mouse event to a position within the boundaries of button.
There are two function to simulate mouse event SendInput and mouse_event. I recommend using mouse_event function. To raise a window you can use ShowWindow. I don't know how to get the handle of a button, but if you have its hWnd its easy to find its absolute position using GetWindowRect function. Try using these, if you run into any problems I will be glad to help.
Or define a custom WM within your application window to handle save request. WM_CUSTOM or WM_USER (cant remember which) marks the start of user defined window messages.
When I have to do these kind of things I use SendKeys. It is VB-ish and C# provides a nice interface to use but for C/C++ you'll have to do it <this way>. What is nice with it is that you could write scripts and run them instead of hard coding it in your code.
Microsoft is now pushing Active Accessibility (MSAA) for UI Automation,
(It has been renamed a number of times over the years)
see
UI Automation and Microsoft Active Accessibility
Using UI Automation for Automated Testing
UI Automation Clients for Managed Code
Sorry I don’t have any simple code to get you started. As “SendMessage()” does not seem to be working for you, I don’t know of another option apart from “UI Automation”
I am assuming you have check with Spy++ (installed with MsDev) that you message are being send to the correct button etc – and that the button is a standard windows buttons. My first instant would say use “SendMessage()" or "PostMessage()” but given the numbers of answers about “SendMessage()” and the fact it is not working for you. I expect someone is going on…
//Send digit 4 to the already opened calc.exe
HWND windowHandle;
windowHandle = FindWindowA(NULL,"Calculator");
if(windowHandle != 0)
ret = EnumChildWindows(windowHandle,GetButtonHandle,0);
BOOL CALLBACK GetButtonHandle(HWND handle, LPARAM)
{
char label[100];
int size = GetWindowTextA(handle,label,sizeof(label));
if(strcmp(label,"4") == 0)
{
PostMessage(handle ,WM_LBUTTONDOWN,(WPARAM)0x0001,0);
PostMessage(handle ,WM_LBUTTONUP,(WPARAM)0x0001,0);
PostMessage(handle ,WM_LBUTTONDOWN,(WPARAM)0x0001,0);
PostMessage(handle ,WM_LBUTTONUP,(WPARAM)0x0001,0);
return false;
}
return true;
}
You can use sendkeys (as tr3 said) to send mouse clicks, which is different than using SendMessage. It is also less direct and more hack-ish, but is useful for automation (in VBS).
Also, just a guess but the problem could be that your message handling is broken somewhere by not calling the base class member. Example:
void CMyClass::OnMessageY(CWnd *cwnd)
{
CBaseClass::OnMessageY(cwnd);
//... my code
}
if you sure ButtonHandle are valid handle you can use pair WM_LBUTTONDOWN and WM_LBUTTONUP message instead of BN_CLICKED
HWND ButtonHandle;
if( (wnd = FindWindow(0, "Do you want to save?")) )
{
SendMessage(ButtonHandle, WM_LBUTTONDOWN, MK_LBUTTON, 0);
SendMessage(ButtonHandle, WM_LBUTTONUP, MK_LBUTTON, 0);
}
A non-C approach: Use Java and the java.awt.Robot class to move the mouse around perform real clicks (I guess there is something in the Windows World for this, too).
Problem: You have to know where your button is :D
My app. will be running on the system try monitoring for a hotkey; when the user selects some text in any window and presses a hotkey, how do I obtain the selected text, when I get the WM_HOTKEY message?
To capture the text on to the clipboard, I tried sending Ctrl + C using keybd_event() and SendInput() to the active window (GetActiveWindow()) and forground window (GetForegroundWindow()); tried combinations amongst these; all in vain. Can I get the selected text of the focused window in Windows with plain Win32 system APIs?
TL;DR: Yes, there is a way to do this using plain win32 system APIs, but it's difficult to implement correctly.
WM_COPY and WM_GETTEXT may work, but not in all cases. They depend on the receiving window handling the request correctly - and in many cases it will not. Let me run through one possible way of doing this. It may not be as simple as you were hoping, but what is in the adventure filled world of win32 programming? Ready? Ok. Let's go.
First we need to get the HWND id of the target window. There are many ways of doing this. One such approach is the one you mentioned above: get the foreground window and then the window with focus, etc. However, there is one huge gotcha that many people forget. After you get the foreground window you must AttachThreadInput to get the window with focus. Otherwise GetFocus() will simply return NULL.
There is a much easier way. Simply (miss)use the GUITREADINFO functions. It's much safer, as it avoids all the hidden dangers associated with attaching your input thread with another program.
LPGUITHREADINFO lpgui = NULL;
HWND target_window = NULL;
if( GetGUIThreadInfo( NULL, lpgui ) )
target_window = lpgui->hwndFocus;
else
{
// You can get more information on why the function failed by calling
// the win32 function, GetLastError().
}
Sending the keystrokes to copy the text is a bit more involved...
We're going to use SendInput instead of keybd_event because it's faster, and, most importantly, cannot be messed up by concurrent user input, or other programs simulating keystrokes.
This does mean that the program will be required to run on Windows XP or later, though, so, sorry if your running 98!
// We're sending two keys CONTROL and 'V'. Since keydown and keyup are two
// seperate messages, we multiply that number by two.
int key_count = 4;
INPUT* input = new INPUT[key_count];
for( int i = 0; i < key_count; i++ )
{
input[i].dwFlags = 0;
input[i].type = INPUT_KEYBOARD;
}
input[0].wVK = VK_CONTROL;
input[0].wScan = MapVirtualKey( VK_CONTROL, MAPVK_VK_TO_VSC );
input[1].wVK = 0x56 // Virtual key code for 'v'
input[1].wScan = MapVirtualKey( 0x56, MAPVK_VK_TO_VSC );
input[2].dwFlags = KEYEVENTF_KEYUP;
input[2].wVK = input[0].wVK;
input[2].wScan = input[0].wScan;
input[3].dwFlags = KEYEVENTF_KEYUP;
input[3].wVK = input[1].wVK;
input[3].wScan = input[1].wScan;
if( !SendInput( key_count, (LPINPUT)input, sizeof(INPUT) ) )
{
// You can get more information on why this function failed by calling
// the win32 function, GetLastError().
}
There. That wasn't so bad, was it?
Now we just have to take a peek at what's in the clipboard. This isn't as simple as you would first think. The "clipboard" can actually hold multiple representations of the same thing. The application that is active when you copy to the clipboard has control over what exactly to place in the clipboard.
When you copy text from Microsoft Office, for example, it places RTF data into the clipboard, alongside a plain-text representation of the same text. That way you can paste it into wordpad and notepad. Wordpad would use the rich-text format, while notepad would use the plain-text format.
For this simple example, though, let's assume we're only interested in plaintext.
if( OpenClipboard(NULL) )
{
// Optionally you may want to change CF_TEXT below to CF_UNICODE.
// Play around with it, and check out all the standard formats at:
// http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms649013(VS.85).aspx
HGLOBAL hglb = GetClipboardData( CF_TEXT );
LPSTR lpstr = GlobalLock(hglb);
// Copy lpstr, then do whatever you want with the copy.
GlobalUnlock(hglb);
CloseClipboard();
}
else
{
// You know the drill by now. Check GetLastError() to find out what
// went wrong. :)
}
And there you have it! Just make sure you copy lpstr to some variable you want to use, don't use lpstr directly, since we have to cede control of the contents of the clipboard before we close it.
Win32 programming can be quite daunting at first, but after a while... it's still daunting.
Cheers!
Try adding a Sleep() after each SendInput(). Some apps just aren't that fast in catching keyboard input.
Try SendMessage(WM_COPY, etc. ).