Is it possible to determine the previous active process to activate it?
Mac OS X / C++ / Carbon.
GetNextProcess() does not refer to Z-order of processes, but I need the real previous.
The original task is to bring the user back to their work when they closes my info window. Currently another window of my app gets the focus, if any, or there just no window with focus. It is unusable.
Update. Now I'm using the following workaround: 500ms timer watches for GetFrontProcess() which is not equal GetCurrentProcess(). Then calling SetForegroundProcess() for the last stored serial number.
You can get the zorder of processes from this place. Last process should be the one you are looking for. Or change code to read in reverse.
Related
OK, I get it: focus stealing is evil. Or at least it is 99.9% of the time. But I really need to steal the focus reliably on Windows 8, and so far I'm thwarted by the hordes of people insisting focus stealing is always evil.
Scenario: we run a custom application on an ordinary PC running Windows 8.1 (soon to be Windows 10). The screen, keyboard and mouse sit roughly 5m off the ground up some stairs that the forklift operator really shouldn't climb. The one input device they have is a numeric keypad on an extender cable down at their level. Everything they need to do they can do from that keypad... so long as some evil program hasn't stolen our application's focus, or some remote user hasn't logged out and left another application with focus.
The application is essentially a maximised desktop application - it fills the screen (but is not strictly a "full screen" or "topmost" application), and therefore allows other applications to appear in front of it when required. But when the mouse goes idle, we want this application to resume its "normal" position in front of all other applications so that it gets focus and the numeric keypad input will work reliably.
On Windows 7, using SetForegroundWindow() (enabled by AllowSetForegroundWindow() works fine - the application can be brought back to the front and resume focus. On Windows 8, SetForegroundWindow() only results in the taskbar icon flashing, but the application does not regain focus, forcing our user to climb the stairs... where the full keyboard and mouse is too tempting for them not to press buttons they shouldn't, and chaos typically ensues.
So please sir: can our (MFC, desktop) application steal back the focus once the mouse has gone idle for 1 minute, because it is more or less the only application that should normally be running anyway. If that is permitted, how do we steal it reliably?
Configure hotkeys on numeric keypad (RegisterHotKey).
Pressing a registered hotkey gives you the foreground activation love by Raymond Chen
After you call the RegisterHotKey function to register a hotkey, the
window manager will send you a WM_HOTKEY message when the user presses
that hotkey, and along with it, you will get the foreground love. If
you call SetForegroundWindow from inside your hotkey handler, the
foreground window will change according to your instructions.
Possible solution (with major limitations): do nothing extra; wait.
One of our service technicians observed that on the third or fourth attempt to regain focus using AllowSetForegroundWindow() and SetForegroundWindow() as had been working on Windows 7, Windows 8 finally allowed our application to regain focus. It is not clear what the conditions are that make this work, or if it works reliably, but we have now observed our application regaining focus from beneath Chrome, from beneath another (self-developed) MFC application, and from beneath a third party application - all desktop applications. Approximately 3-4 minutes needed to elapse in each case before focus was surrendered back to our (desktop) application.
However, we have not witnessed it regain focus from beneath metro applications, and nor do we expect it (e.g. hit the Windows key and leave the system lingering on the Start screen).
In our (restricted) situation, we are willing to take the gamble that our users will not launch a metro application that obscures our desktop application, at least not without restoring our application, since their business relies on it. Our main concern is that one of our busy service technicians will log in remotely, get distracted, and carelessly leave one of our desktop utilities with the focus. Waiting 3-4 minutes appears to be a solution to this specific scenario.
I would try it in this way:
Setup a timer in you application. That checks GetForegroundWindow on a regular basis.
If GetForgroundWindow does not belong to your process (GetWindowThreadProcessId)
If a different process onws the foreground window use AttachThreadInput and attach your input queue to the input queue of the other process.
Now use SetForegoundWindow and detach the thread input again.
Now you can use SetFocus as needed to control the input focus of your program.
I need to move the mouse to the last opened window. This last window will be a popup created by whatever website.
I guess all I need is to get the position of the last opened window and use SetMousePos, right?
I'm not really familiar with the windows API and any help is welcome - Thanks!
Edit:
To answer the questions, we are writing a program that gets malware data. Unfortunately some malware only start working after the mouse moves to a popup they opened. Its a research-based application
I haven't tested this but I believe you could try the following:
Enumerate running processes and order by PID.
The highest number PID should be the "newest" process.
For the newest process enumerate its windows (use GetWindowThreadProcessId)
At this point I guess you'd have to pick which window you think is the "main" window, for example if the malware opens two windows I don't know how you're going to choose which one to give focus to?
Of your picked HWND get its position on the desktop.
Use SetMousePos to move the mouse to the position of the window.
I haven't included all the API's you'll need for these tasks as its generally quite easy to find on here :)
One way to track recently opened windows is to use SetWinEventHook to listen to the EVENT_OBJECT_CREATE and EVENT_OBJECT_SHOW events. In the callback, filter:
just events with a non-null HWND where idObject==OBJID_WINDOW to get just window creation events (vs other creation events such as for items within a listbox)
for top-level only windows, also filter by checking GetAncestor(hwnd, GA_PARENT) is GetDesktopWindow()
And check that the window is indeed currently visible (WS_VISIBLE style is set in GetWindowLong(GWL_STYLE)).
Also filter by GetWindowThreadProcessId() and via the thread/process you pass into SetWinEventHook if you only care about HWNDs from a specific app.
The reason for checking both of these events is that some windows are created hidden and then shown, others are created fully visible, while others are created once, then shown/hidden many times over their lifetime.
You can then cache this 'last known created hwnd' in a global and check it as needed, using GetWindowRect() to get its location, and SetCursorPos() to move the mouse to that location.
--
If the most recent popup is an active window which takes focus - as is the case with dialogs, but not usually the case with 'pop-under' windows - you can use GetGUIThreadInfo(NULL, ...) to determine the currently active HWND, which might be the one you are looking for, returned in the GUITHREADINFO.hwndActive member of the struct you pass it.
This is a weird question. I have written a .NET application that starts a process. This process is a MFC application written in c++. For some reason the process does not start doing anything until the form is displayed to the user for the first time. For example, if the process starts minimized I have to un-minimize it (click on it) before it will start doing whatever it's supposed to do. Also, if my application is running and starting this process while the screen is locked the process behaves the same as if it's minimized. It doesn't start doing anything until I unlock the screen and it is displayed to the user for the first time. Like I said, this is a weird question so I hope I'm conveying the problem properly.
Sounds like your functionality is embedded in MFC Windows' load event. If you want the application to be more reactive, move that code to your application class.
Not very sure how to explain it in a clear way. Basicaly, the thing is that I'm looking for a method to change a current active window ( Self-produced def., hope it'll be understandable enough ) - window, where the text is directly typed right now. Whooh.
What have I allready discovered is msdn help and SetFocus() or SetActiveWindow(), but it doesn't solve my problem ( or, what is also possible, I'm just using it in a wrong way ).
Simply:
HWND Dest = GetFocus();
... //Some moving around on the 'alt-tab level' :-|
SetFocus(Dest);
Doesn't set the Dest window active again.
Please, excuse for the newbie questions, hope it won't take much time from you. Thanx!
SetFocus() does not bring a window to the top. It just sets the keyboard focus.
SetActiveWindow() on the other hand brings the specific window on top, but only if the application that calls it is also the application that owns it. ( according to the documentation).
When you say you did try SetActiveWindow() what do you mean? How did it fail? What results did it produce?
Another function you can try is SetForegroundWindow() in case you want to activate a window belonging to another application but this has its problems as you see from below (directly from the documentation):
The system restricts which processes can set the foreground window. A
process can set the foreground window only if one of the following
conditions is true:
The process is the foreground process.
The process was started by the foreground process.
The process received the last input event.
There is no foreground process.
The foreground process is being debugged.
The foreground is not locked (see LockSetForegroundWindow).
The foreground lock time-out has expired (see SPI_GETFOREGROUNDLOCKTIMEOUT in SystemParametersInfo).
No menus are active.
Try using the SetForegroundWindow function.
Do however note that there are limitations on this, which are explained on the MSDN page remarks sections and I've copied here.
The system restricts which processes can set the foreground window. A
process can set the foreground window only if one of the following
conditions is true:
The process is the foreground process. The process was started by the foreground process.
The process received the last input event.
There is no foreground process.
The foreground process is being debugged.
The foreground is not locked (see LockSetForegroundWindow).
The foreground lock time-out has expired (see SPI_GETFOREGROUNDLOCKTIMEOUT in SystemParametersInfo).
No menus are active.
An application cannot force a window to the foreground while the user
is working with another window. Instead, Windows flashes the taskbar
button of the window to notify the user.
What that means is that if you don't own the current foreground process (which is probably the case when the user tabs around) then you can't set a new foreground window.
There are several hacks around (google SetForegroundWindow and you will find them) but they are hacks and not a good idea - let the user decide what is in the foreground! (also as Raymond Chen explains on his blog here the hacks can often cause a program to hang)
I've been working on an input event system.
I mapped all the keys on my own keyboard, the scancodes and so on, including both windows keys.
When I press them, the program successfully receives the distinct keydown events for them without any trouble.
When I release the keys, however, the Start Menu pops up, obscuring the program in windows mode, or even minimizing it in fullscreen.
So my problem lies in suppressing that.
Arma 2, a Military Simulator/Game allows commands to be mapped on those keys without any trouble.
Where do I have to catch that event?
Can I do it for my own window as long as it has focus?
Am I going to be stuck with a disabled win-key as long as it is running?
Or something else?
Googling it was mainly fruitless due to Windows key also referring to the product key, and when I did find something, it usually flat out disabled the whole button.
I just want to suppress the popup.
Edit:
I tried
case WM_SYSCOMMAND:
switch(wParam)
{
case SC_TASKLIST:
return 0;
default:
break;
}
But that gave me very odd results.
If I spammed the winkeys and only the winkeys, it seemed to work, as soon as I moved the mouse while doing so, it didn't, the start menu would pop up again.
Edit:
I also tried hooks, but on win7 they get removed if the callback takes too much time, which can happen when large data is loaded, so they suggest a dedicated thread for it, but I think that's overkill for just one key that needs handled.
I just want to know where the Start Menu gets called. My own program? The system?
This is so friggin annoying, I am contemplating trying to reach the people from Bohemia Interactive and ask them how they did it.
Just this one key, sheesh Microsoft...even with "Super key/superkey" search terms, I usually only get flat out disabling methods, from registry changes to third party background programs.
Bah!
This artcile was relating to C# but may point you in the right direction;
From MSDN:
A global hook monitors messages for all threads in the same desktop as
the calling thread. A thread-specific hook monitors messages for only
an individual thread. A global hook procedure can be called in the
context of any application in the same desktop as the calling thread,
so the procedure must be in a separate DLL module. A thread-specific
hook procedure is called only in the context of the associated thread.
This was the most helpful link in order to answer the question in the above article
The Raw Input API should solve your problem.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms645543.aspx