Win forms, log all clicks? - winforms

Question

Is there a way to log all of the clicks in a Win Forms application? I'd like to intercept clicks and record the action and the name of the control that caused it.
Is this possible?
Thanks in advance.
UPDATE: I'm looking for an application wide solution, is there no way to add a listener to the windows event queue (or what ever it is called)?

Answer 1

You can do this by having your app's main form implement the IMessageFilter interface. You can screen the Window messages it gets and look for clicks. For example:
public partial class Form1 : Form, IMessageFilter {
public Form1() {
InitializeComponent();
Application.AddMessageFilter(this);
this.FormClosed += (o, e) => Application.RemoveMessageFilter(this);
}
public bool PreFilterMessage(ref Message m) {
if (m.Msg == 0x201 || m.Msg == 0x203) { // Trap left click + double-click
string name = "Unknown";
Control ctl = Control.FromHandle(m.HWnd);
if (ctl != null) name = ctl.Name;
Point pos = new Point(m.LParam.ToInt32());
Console.WriteLine("Click {0} at {1}", name, pos);
}
return false;
}
}
Note that this logs all clicks in any window of your app.

Answer 2

You could use Spy++ or WinSpy++ to achieve this.
alt text http://www.catch22.net/sites/default/files/images/winspy1.img_assist_custom.jpg
But I'm not sure how you can achieve the same thing yourself. If it's possible you'd need to do it via a low-level Windows API hook or a message handler that gives you access to all the message in your applications queue.

Answer 3

Well, you could subscribe to the Click or MouseDown event of every control on the form.

Answer 4

use MouseEventArgs like this:
private void Form_MouseDown(object sender, System.WinForms.MouseEventArgs e)
{
switch (e.Button)
{
case MouseButtons.Left:
MessageBox.Show(this,"Left Button Click");
break;
case MouseButtons.Right:
MessageBox.Show(this,"Right Button Click" );
break;
case MouseButtons.Middle:
break;
default:
break;
}
EventLog.WriteEntry("source", e.X.ToString() + " " + e.Y.ToString()); //or your own Log function
}

Answer 5

The NunitForms test project has a recorder application that watches for this and many other events. The code is very clever and worth a good look. It's a ThoughtWorks project.
That's the rolls Royce solution though!...
Try recursively walking the Controls collection of the form and subscibe to the event based on the type.
PK :-)