C - Minesweeper AI not clicking tile - c

Question

The game is Minesweeper. The AI I am trying to implement will take an instance of the game Minesweeper that is already running on a machine (this case Windows 7), get the rectangular dimensions of the windows, compute the location of the window, push it to the foreground of the screen, click the top left square then go through the fancy algorithms to decide which square is a mine and which is clear.
Recently, I have been able to get the handling of the window and cursor correct only after implementing a MessageBox before the first tile is clicked.
With the message box, the program will push the Minesweeper window to the front, generate the message box, after the enter button on the message box is clicked the program will position the cursor on the correct top left square then stop... In the code after the message box, there is a commented out section which, when uncommented, iterates over the entirety of the Minesweeper window and marks it as a mine (flag!) - which tells me it does register the ClickTile correctly for mines - but not clear areas. After this the program is suppose to click the first tile in the top left corner. All that happens is the mouse flickering.
The correct behavior is to push the Minesweeper window to the front, generate the message box, after the message box is clicked, it should click the top left square within the game.
The question is, why is it not registering the LEFTMOUSEDOWN and only the RIGHTMOUSEDOWN in the ClickTile?
UiInfo.h
#ifndef UiInfo_
#define UiInfo_
#include <Windows.h>
struct UiInfo {
float scale;
POINT start;
int tile_size;
};
extern struct UiInfo * ui_info;
void UiInfo_initialize(struct UiInfo * ui_info,
float scale,
POINT start,
int tile_size);
#endif
UiInfo.c
#include "UiInfo.h"
void UiInfo_initialize(struct UiInfo * ui_info,
float scale,
POINT start,
int tile_size) {
ui_info->scale = scale;
ui_info->start = start;
ui_info->tile_size = tile_size;
}
main.c
void ClickTile(int is_mine, int x, int y) {
INPUT input = {0};
int xpos = (int)(ui_info->start.x + ui_info->tile_size * x);
int ypos = (int)(ui_info->start.y + ui_info->tile_size * y);
SetCursorPos(xpos, ypos);
input.type = INPUT_MOUSE;
if(is_mine) {
input.mi.dwFlags = MOUSEEVENTF_RIGHTDOWN;
}
else {
input.mi.dwFlags = MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTDOWN;
}
SendInput(1, &input, sizeof(INPUT));
ZeroMemory(&input, sizeof(INPUT));
input.type = INPUT_MOUSE;
if(is_mine) {
input.mi.dwFlags = MOUSEEVENTF_RIGHTUP;
}
else {
input.mi.dwFlags = MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTUP;
}
SendInput(1, &input, sizeof(INPUT));
}
int WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance,
HINSTANCE hPrevInstance,
LPSTR lpCmdLine,
int nCmdShow) {
float scale;
POINT start;
RECT rect;
int size;
int x,y;
HWND hwnd_minesweeper = FindWindow(NULL, "Minesweeper");
GetWindowRect(hwnd_minesweeper, &rect);
scale = ((float)(rect.right - rect.left)) / ((float)(74 + 18 * 30));
// the point start is located at the center of the tile in the top left
// corner of the minesweeper map
start.x = ((long)scale) * (38 + 9) + rect.left;
start.y = rect.bottom - ((long)scale) * (38 + 15*18 + 9);
size = (int)scale * 18;
ui_info = (struct UiInfo *)malloc(sizeof(struct UiInfo));
UiInfo_initialize(ui_info, scale, start, size);
SetForegroundWindow(hwnd_minesweeper);
MessageBox(NULL, "A", "B", MB_OK);
/*for(y = 0; y < 16; y++) {
for(x = 0; x < 30; x++) {
Sleep(10);
ClickTile(1,x,y);
}
}*/
//Click the mine in the top left corner to start the game
ClickTile(0, 0, 0);
return 0;
}

Answer 1

I'll take three guesses.
Guess Number 1
You need to use a timer to allow your mouse movement and mouse clicks time to take effect. This involves starting a timer on app launch, and then implementing a state machine that generates new mouse events when the timer fires, e.g.
// start the timer in some initialization function
SetTimer( 75, 5, NULL );
// handler function to update the overall state
void CMainFrame::OnTimer(UINT nIDEvent)
{
switch ( m_State )
{
case STATE_IDLE: // do nothing until the user tells us to start
case STATE_DONE: // do nothing after the game is finished
break;
case STATE_START: // the first click to get things started
mouse_event( MOUSEEVENTF_MOVE | MOUSEEVENTF_ABSOLUTE, m_Square[1][1].mousex, m_Square[1][1].mousey, 0, 0 );
mouse_event( MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTDOWN, 0, 0, 0, 0 );
mouse_event( MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTUP , 0, 0, 0, 0 );
m_State = STATE_MOVING;
break;
case STATE_MOVING: // all the fun happens here
if ( !MakeAMove() )
{
m_State = STATE_DONE;
Invalidate();
}
break;
}
CFrameWnd::OnTimer(nIDEvent);
}
Guess Number 2
The mouse coordinate system is 65536 x 65536 regardless of screen resolution. So you need to scale the mouse coordinates to convert to pixel locations. Here's one way to compute the scale factors
HDC hdc = ::GetDC( NULL );
CDC *dc = CDC::FromHandle( hdc );
CWnd *wnd = dc->GetWindow();
wnd->GetClientRect( &rect );
xscale = 65535.0 / (double)rect.right;
yscale = 65535.0 / (double)rect.bottom;
Guess Number 3
You need to move the mouse to the correct screen coordinates before generating the mouse click event, e.g.
// the following code goes in some initialization function that knows the location of the minesweeper window
// note that screenx and screeny are the pixel coordinates of the center point of each square and these
// are converted to mouse coordinates for each square
for ( y = 1; y <= m_MaxY; y++ )
for ( x = 1; x <= m_MaxX; x++ )
{
m_Square[y][x].mousex = (int)(m_Square[y][x].screenx * xscale + 0.5);
m_Square[y][x].mousey = (int)(m_Square[y][x].screeny * yscale + 0.5);
}
// this code generates a left click in a given square
mouse_event( MOUSEEVENTF_MOVE | MOUSEEVENTF_ABSOLUTE, m_Square[y][x].mousex, m_Square[y][x].mousey, 0, 0 );
mouse_event( MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTDOWN, 0, 0, 0, 0 );
mouse_event( MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTUP , 0, 0, 0, 0 );