I am using Spy++ to find windows, I am doing this as a test and realise the Handles change fequently. However, here is the information I get from Spy++. Can I use these handles to grab that window in C++
Here's how I get it from the name.
HWND main_window_handle = FindWindowA(NULL, WINDOW_NAME);
How can I get it using either the Window Handle or Instance Handle.
The window handle is the HWND and their values are not stable, it will probably change every time you run the program.
The instance handle (HINSTANCE) is also not stable and has little to do with finding a specific window in another application, it is the load address of the module (.exe or .dll) that created the window.
To find a window you will generally call FindWindow with a specific class name. If the class name of the window you are looking for is not really unique then you should probably use EnumWindows and try to look for other specific attributes and/or child windows to identify the top level window you are looking for.
It is also possible (and often the best approach) to use UI Automation to find and manipulate windows in 3rd-party applications.
Try using
HINSTANCE myInstance = (HINSTANCE)&__ImageBase;
Related
I have recently migrated a project of mine to WebView2 and the last part I can't figure out is how to intercept the Windows Messages for the webview. My code is very similar to webview/webview but I was unable to find help on their GitHub.
Previously, I was able to find the hWnd for the webview and use SetWindowSubclass to add my own wndproc to the webview. However, I've used Spy++ and tried SetWindowSubclass on all the windows that showed up there (see below) but none of them had any windows messages in my wndproc other than some window management ones I did not think were useful - The best I got was WM_PARENTYNOTIFY, but I am interested in WM_MOUSEMOVE and WM_NCHITTEST - neither of which I could find.
My goal is to create a borderless, draggable, resizeable WebView2 based app.
The problem is, that the real window that controls and gets all this input is in another process. You just see a window that shows the output in your process.
Look into Spy++. Everything below Chrome_WidgetWin_0 belongs to a new process (MSEDGEWEBVIEW2) and is not part of your process. So you can't subclass such a window with the normal techniques.
So if you want to subclass this window. You need to inject a new DLL into this new process. This DLL might subclass the real window. And this DLL might communicate with you hosting program via any IPC.
I know how to get and set the handle of another applications window in the code, but I don't know how to set the applications handle at runtime through an edit control. the problem is is that I have to keep compiling my application every time I want to use it, because the handle of the window in application 2 is dynamic.
does anyone have any ideas?
To find current HWND of application window you are interested in, you can enumareate windows using EnumWindows:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms633497%28v=vs.85%29.aspx
or maybe easier is to use FindWindow, if you know its name/class:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms633499%28v=vs.85%29.aspx
you can also use GetWindow to iterate windows:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms633515%28v=vs.85%29.aspx
...lots of possibilities
I would like to use c++ without mfc(and not clr) in order to modify textbox's and activate a button on a form outside of my project. I don't know where to start. I've done a lot of searching but can only find information for VB. A starting point would help.
Thanks.
I tried this and it doesn't seem to work.
HWND fWindow = FindWindow(NULL ,(LPCWSTR)"title");
and I also tried this
HWND fWindow = FindWindow(NULL ,LPCWSTR("title"));
I ALSO tried using LPTSTR instead of LPCWSTR, incase it was a unicode deal.
Maybe I don't understand this microsoft LPCWSTR and LPTSTR crap.
I also tried
HWND fWindow = FindWindow(NULL,TEXT("title"));
and that didn't work.
I guess the windows api must just be broken.
I tried the function on other programs...I'm using xp and I tried catching the calculator, and an explorer window, and something else. But I got nothing.
Heres some of the exact code I'm using to try and figure this out.
HWND face = NULL;
face = FindWindow(NULL,TEXT("My Computer"));
LPSTR title = TEXT("");
GetWindowText(face,title,250);
if(face != NULL)
{
MessageBox(NULL,title,TEXT("WOOP"),1);
}
face = nothing.
title = ""
Bear in mind, I'm not actually trying to hook explorer, I just want to figure out how to get it to work.
Use spy++ or winspector to see the actual "text" of the window.
(Strictly speaking, the caption of the window need not match it's window text. Especially true of "fancy" windows which paint their own caption.)
The following works fine for me (using Calc.exe to test).
HWND hwnd = NULL;
hwnd = FindWindow(NULL,_T("Calculator"));
TCHAR title[251];
if(hwnd != NULL)
{
GetWindowText(hwnd,title,250);
MessageBox(NULL,title,_T("WOOP"),MB_OK);
}
else
MessageBox(NULL,_T("No such window."),_T("OOPS"),MB_OK);
Edit: You should have used _TEXT instead of TEXT.
One way to do this is to use FindWindow to get a handle to the form. Then if you know the button and edit window Ids, you can use GetDlgItem to get their window handles. If you dont know the ids, you can use EnumChildWindows to examine all of the controls on the form.
Once you have the window handles for the controls, you can use SetWindowText to set the text on the edit control, and send a WM_COMMAND message to the form window with the button ID as the command value to make the form think that the button has been clicked.
There are a lot of ways to go about this once you have the correct window handles. There are security issues when you use the window handles of another process, but if the process isn't secured, then inter-process use of window handles just works. For a secured process, you won't be able to find out the window handles.
The windows API provides Methods for this. These should be independent of MFC and CLR, as they are plain win32. I had a project once accessing the Form fields of an Applictation from a loaded DLL (don't ask why).
you might want to look here (Codeproject)
or here (msdn)
At first, you need to obtain a handle to the process you want to access.
When have this, you can use GetDlgItem() (search msdn for that) to retrieve a handle to the desired textbox.
With this handle, you should be able to modify the control in question.
If your trying to get big (and do some more UI automation), you sould have a closer look at these:
Microsoft Active Accessibility
IAccessible2
Microsoft UI Automation
Windows Automation API (Win7)
I have a written a Visual C++ console application (i.e. subsystem:console) that prints useful diagnositic messages to the console.
However, I would like to keep the application minimized most of the time, and instead of minimizing to the taskbar, appear as a nice icon on the system tray. I would also like to restore the console when the system tray icon is clicked.
How should I change my program to do this?
This is going to be an ugly hack.
First, you have to retrieve the hWnd / hInstance of you console application. Right now, I can only come up with one way:
Create a Guid with CoCreateGuid()
Convert it to a string
Set the title of the console window to this guid with SetConsoleTitle()
Find the hWnd of the your window with the Guid as the tile with FindWindow()
And you can do it from the usual way from this point. See http://www.gidforums.com/t-9218.html for more info.
Don't forget the rename your console window to the original title once you're done.
As you can see, even though this is possible to do, it's a horrible and painful solution. Please don't do it. Please do not minimize console applications to the system tray. It is not something you are supposed to be able to do in the Windows API.
You might want to write a separate gui to function as a log reader. You will then find it much easier to make this minimize to the tray. It would also let you do some other stuff you might find useful, such as changing which level of logging messages are visible on the fly.
To learn the console's hWnd you have two choices:
On Windows 2000 or later you can use the GetConsoleWindow() function. Don't forget to define _WIN32_WINNT as 0x0500 or greater before including windows.h to have access to this function.
If you want to run your program on earlier Windows versions as well then you must use something like the GUID trick described above.
Probably your best bet is to create a "Message-only window" (a message queue without a visible window) to receive the Notification Area messages.
The answer with a GUID is completely ridiculous (no sense at all)
The Console hWnd is of course given by GetConsoleWindow() (!)
I need to enumerate all running applications. In particular, all top windows. And for every window I need to add my custom item to the system menu of that window.
How can I accomplish that in C++?
Update.
I would be more than happy to have a solution for Windows, MacOS, and Ubuntu (though, I'm not sure if MacOS and Ubuntu have such thing as 'system menu').
For Windows, another way to get the top-level windows (besides EnumWindows, which uses a callback) is to get the first child of the desktop and then retrieve all its siblings:
HWND wnd = GetWindow(GetDesktopWindow(), GW_CHILD);
while (wnd) {
// handle 'wnd' here
// ...
wnd = GetNextWindow(wnd, GW_HWNDNEXT);
}
As for getting the system menu, use the GetSystemMenu function, with FALSE as the second argument. The GetMenu mentioned in the other answers returns the normal window menu.
Note, however, that while adding a custom menu item to a foreign process's window is easy, responding to the selection of that item is a bit tricky. You'll either have to inject some code to the process in order to be able to subclass the window, or install a global hook (probably a WH_GETMESSAGE or WH_CBT type) to monitor WM_SYSCOMMAND messages.
Once you have another window's top level handle, you may be able to call GetMenu() to retrieve the Window's system menu and then modify it, eg:
HMENU hMenu = GetMenu(hwndNext);
You can use EnumWindows() to enumerate top level Windows.
I don't have a specific answer for the second part of your question, but if you subclass the window, I imagine you can modify the system menu.
EDIT: or do what Chris said: call GetMenu()
Re: the update - please note that not even Microsoft Windows requires windows to have a sytem menu. GetMenu( ) may return 0. You'll need to intercept window creation as well, because each new top window presumably needs it too.
Also, what you propose is rather intrusive to other applications. How are you going to ensure they don't break when you modify their menus? And how are you going to ensure you suppress the messages? In particular, how will you ensure you intercept them before anyone else sees them? To quote Raymond Chen, imagine what happens if two programs would try that.