I want to make the most simplest application that can communicate via windows send messages (and parse json). I have found a sample code:
CWnd* pWnd = FindWindow("old title");
pWnd->SendMessage(WM_SETTEXT,0,(LPARAM)"New title");
That works... but only if I use MS Visual Studios "create new MFC form application" wizard. How can I make a console application that sends messages to my program? Or can I? What do I need to include/link if I start an empty project or console application?
The goal in pseudocode:
a = ""
while !EOF
a += read(stdin)
commandArray = jsonToArray(a)
CWnd* pWnd = FindWindow("program");
pWnd->SendMessage(WM_COPYDATASTRUCT,0,commandArrayWrappedInCOPYDATASTRUCT);
exit
The annoyance is that the effective part of the code is roughly 20 lines (above), but the wizard generated part is hundreds of lines. And most of them is stuff that I don't understand. Plus, I get a window that I don't need.
EDIT
Final main.cpp (without the json stuff):
/*
This closes calculator
*/
#include <Windows.h>
#include <atlstr.h>
int main (void)
{
HWND HWnd = FindWindow(NULL, CStringW("Calculator"));
SendMessage(HWnd, WM_CLOSE, 0, 0);
return 0;
}
br,
Juha
If you want something so simple, then I'd just forget all about MFC and start with a basic console app from the New Project Wizard. MFC seems rather heavy duty for something so simple.
Related
I want to create a simple command line tool to post quick notifications like this.
I want the tool to be as simple and small as possible. So I choose to code in CPP, and use Win32 API directly.
I found this guide very useful. But it seems this Shell_NotifyIcon API requires a valid hWnd handler, which means I will have to create a hidden/invisible window in my command line tool, which I'd rather not.
Any better idea on how to create a notification on Windows?
The shell notification API requires that you supply a window handle. So create a message only window and use that as the owner of the notification icon and balloons.
That you would prefer not to create a window in your console app is understandable but the API is what it is. You don't get to re-write system APIs for your convenience. You just have to go along with them.
You can do that easily with no need to use ATL or MFC, just pure Win32 API, which can be a Console application as well.
First you need the icon image. Store it in your resource.h file
#define IDI_BATTERY_IMAGE 101
add an .rc file to your project with the following line
IDI_BATTERY_IMAGE ICON "Battery.ico"
Bonus tip: you can find free images to download, like this one. Just make sure to call it "Battery.ico" and place it in the path of your other source files.
Best if you create a separate pair of .cpp and .h files for the notification balloon functionality.
In your .cpp file place the following code:
// tray icon data
NOTIFYICONDATA m_NID;
BOOL CreateTrayIcon()
{
memset(&m_NID, 0, sizeof(m_NID));
m_NID.cbSize = sizeof(m_NID);
m_NID.uID = IDI_BATTERY_IMAGE;
// set handle to the window that receives tray icon notifications
m_NID.hWnd = GetForegroundWindow();
// fields that are being set when adding tray icon
m_NID.uFlags = NIF_MESSAGE | NIF_ICON;
// set image
m_NID.hIcon = LoadIcon(NULL,MAKEINTRESOURCE(IDI_BATTERY_IMAGE));
if (!m_NID.hIcon)
return FALSE;
m_NID.uVersion = NOTIFYICON_VERSION_4;
if (!Shell_NotifyIcon(NIM_ADD, &m_NID))
return FALSE;
return Shell_NotifyIcon(NIM_SETVERSION, &m_NID);
}
BOOL ShowTrayIconBalloon(LPCTSTR pszTitle, LPCTSTR pszText, UINT unTimeout, DWORD dwInfoFlags)
{
m_NID.uFlags |= NIF_INFO;
m_NID.uTimeout = unTimeout;
m_NID.dwInfoFlags = dwInfoFlags;
if (StringCchCopy(m_NID.szInfoTitle, sizeof(m_NID.szInfoTitle), pszTitle) != S_OK)
return FALSE;
if (StringCchCopy(m_NID.szInfo, sizeof(m_NID.szInfo), pszText) != S_OK)
return FALSE;
return Shell_NotifyIcon(NIM_MODIFY, &m_NID);
}
In your header file place the following:
BOOL CreateTrayIcon();
BOOL ShowTrayIconBalloon(LPCTSTR pszTitle, LPCTSTR pszText, UINT unTimeout, DWORD dwInfoFlags);
In your main function add the following code:
CreateTrayIcon();
ShowTrayIconBalloon(L"27 percent remaining", L"Your battary has such and such percentage...", 1000, NULL);
The following code was tested with a simple Console app.
I have an installation dialog (made with nsis) that has two buttons (install and cancel). I'm trying to write automated tests for the install process using low level win32 api. To click on the button(s) I use the following code:
char windowName[] = "Desktop Application Setup";
char cancelButtonText[] = "Cancel";
HWND hWndMainWindow = NULL;
HWND hButton = NULL;
hWndMainWindow = FindWindow(NULL, windowName);
if (hWndMainWindow)
{
hButton = FindWindowEx(hWndMainWindow, NULL, NULL, cancelButtonText);
if (hButton)
{
SendMessage(hButton, BM_CLICK, 0, 0);
}
}
On Windows 7, this works perfectly. On Windows 10, it simply does nothing. It finds the button, it sends the message, but the click just doesn't happen.
Is this some security thing introduced in Windows 10? Is it a known issue?
it is better to send WM_COMMAND with the ID of the button, but the way you are doing works also if Lang is always in English. but the problem with your case is that buttons on dialog usually have an "&" to indicate the keyboard short cut, and usually hidden by system unless you press alt key. (like menus).
so: text of the button is most likely to be "&cancel"
I am trying to retrieve the text of a button on Calculator (calc.exe) using Winapi. I have hooked WH_CALLWNDPROC and the hook works fine. But I am unable to retrieve the text of any button (say numeric 7). I am using GetDlgItemText:
TCHAR text[256];
GetDlgItemText((HWND)0x7068c, 0x89, text, strlen(text));
Here 0x7068c is the parent window handle of the numeric 7 button, while 0x89 is its control id. No text is returned, though I am able to click it programmatically.
What am I doing wrong? I tried to use SendMessage with WM_GETTEXT, but it still doesnt work. I want to take this approach and retrieve the text from buttons, textboxes in other applications.
You could simply use Accessibility:
#include "windows.h"
#include "Oleacc.h"
#include "atlbase.h"
#pragma comment(lib,"Oleacc.lib")
int main()
{
CComPtr<IAccessible> pAcc;
VARIANT varChild;
if (SUCCEEDED(AccessibleObjectFromWindow((HWND)0x000d18e0,
OBJID_WINDOW,IID_IAccessible, reinterpret_cast<void**>(&pAcc))))
{
CComBSTR bstrName;
varChild.vt = VT_I4;
varChild.lVal = CHILDID_SELF;
if (SUCCEEDED(pAcc->get_accName(varChild, &bstrName)))
{
wprintf(L"%s", bstrName.m_str);
}
}
return 0;
}
I finally succeeded in doing this by using EasyHook for hooking DrawTextW, DrawTextExW, ExtTextOutW API functions for retrieving the text off buttons, labels, etc. In the hooked functions I was able to retrieve the text. This SO thread was a great help to me.
The following sample has reliably returned the name of the process that is associated with the active window, but does not work with the newer modern/universal apps because it returns the name of a helper process WWAHost.exe on Windows 8 and ApplicationFrameHost.exe on Windows 10 rather than the name of the app.
HWND active_window = GetForegroundWindow();
GetWindowThreadProcessId(active_window, &active_process_id);
HANDLE active_process = OpenProcess(PROCESS_QUERY_INFORMATION | PROCESS_VM_READ, FALSE, active_process_id);
GetProcessImageFileName(active_process, image_name, 512);
With Windows 10 the ApplicationFrameHost.exe is the process that creates the window handles and is what gets returned by GetWindowThreadProcessId(), is there another Win32 API that can be used to get the active process of universal app that is active?
Also tried using GetApplicationUserModelId() and GetPackageFullName() with no success as they return APPMODEL_ERROR_NO_APPLICATION and APPMODEL_ERROR_NO_PACKAGE respectively because the active_process handle is just the helper process and not the process of the active application.
Any other APIs to use to get the process name of a Modern/Universal application given the hwnd of the window, or otherwise figure out the process name of the universal app is active.
Thanks in advance!
Be sure to use the Spy++ utility when you want to reverse-engineer something like this. Included with Visual Studio, you need the 64-bit version in Common7\Tools\spyxx_amd64.exe. Use Search > Find Window and drag the bullseye to a UWP app, like Weather.
You'll see the window you'll find with GetForegroundWindow(), it has at least 3 child windows:
ApplicationFrameTitleBarWindow
ApplicationFrameInputSinkWindow
Windows.Core.UI.CoreWindow, that's the host window for the UWP app and the one you are interested in. Right-click it and select Properties, Process tab, click the Process ID. That takes you to the real owner process you want to know.
So you just need to make an extra step from the code you already have, you just have to enumerate the child windows and look for one with a different owner process. Some C code, trying to make it as universal as possible without making too many assumptions and not enough error checking:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <Windows.h>
typedef struct {
DWORD ownerpid;
DWORD childpid;
} windowinfo;
BOOL CALLBACK EnumChildWindowsCallback(HWND hWnd, LPARAM lp) {
windowinfo* info = (windowinfo*)lp;
DWORD pid = 0;
GetWindowThreadProcessId(hWnd, &pid);
if (pid != info->ownerpid) info->childpid = pid;
return TRUE;
}
int main()
{
Sleep(2000);
HWND active_window = GetForegroundWindow();
windowinfo info = { 0 };
GetWindowThreadProcessId(active_window, &info.ownerpid);
info.childpid = info.ownerpid;
EnumChildWindows(active_window, EnumChildWindowsCallback, (LPARAM)&info);
HANDLE active_process = OpenProcess(PROCESS_QUERY_INFORMATION, FALSE, info.childpid);
WCHAR image_name[MAX_PATH] = { 0 };
DWORD bufsize = MAX_PATH;
QueryFullProcessImageName(active_process, 0, image_name, &bufsize);
wprintf(L"%s\n", image_name);
CloseHandle(active_process);
return 0;
}
Output on the Weather program:
C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.BingWeather_4.5.168.0_x86__8wekyb3d8bbwe\
Microsoft.Msn.Weather.exe
Here is a small console app application that continuously (so you can test it easily selecting different windows on your desktop) display information about the current foreground window process and store process, if any.
Apps can have a window hierarchy that can span multiple processes. What I do here is search the first sub window that has the 'Windows.UI.Core.CoreWindow' class name.
This app uses the UIAutomation API (and also smart pointers, smart BSTRs and smart VARIANTs provided by the #import directive). I suppose you can do the same with standard Windows SDK, but I find the UIAutomation used this way quite elegant.
#include "stdafx.h"
#import "UIAutomationCore.dll"
using namespace UIAutomationClient;
int main()
{
// initialize COM, needed for UIA
CoInitialize(NULL);
// initialize main UIA class
IUIAutomationPtr pUIA(__uuidof(CUIAutomation));
do
{
// get the Automation element for the foreground window
IUIAutomationElementPtr foregroundWindow = pUIA->ElementFromHandle(GetForegroundWindow());
wprintf(L"pid:%i\n", foregroundWindow->CurrentProcessId);
// prepare a [class name = 'Windows.UI.Core.CoreWindow'] condition
_variant_t prop = L"Windows.UI.Core.CoreWindow";
IUIAutomationConditionPtr condition = pUIA->CreatePropertyCondition(UIA_ClassNamePropertyId, prop);
// get the first element (window hopefully) that satisfies this condition
IUIAutomationElementPtr coreWindow = foregroundWindow->FindFirst(TreeScope::TreeScope_Children, condition);
if (coreWindow)
{
// get the process id property for that window
wprintf(L"store pid:%i\n", coreWindow->CurrentProcessId);
}
Sleep(1000);
} while (TRUE);
cleanup:
CoUninitialize();
return 0;
}
Does taking snapshot of running processes and pulling the name out of it by comparing process id not work?
Full reference here:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms686837(v=vs.85).aspx
But you fix the snapshot with CreateToolhelp32Snapshot().
Or from WTSEnumerateProcesses() and surrounding API?
Pretty sure it worked in Win 8. Is it broken in 10?
Starting from Win10 Anniversary Update ApplicationFrameHost child window return anything but UWP application. It worked only in Tablet mode after relogon.
I want to quickly test an ocx. How do I drop that ocx in a console application. I have found some tutorials in CodeProject and but are incomplete.
Isn't an OCX an ActiveX User Control? (something that you put onto a form for the user to interact with)?
The easiest way I know of to test COM/ActiveX stuff is to use excel. (Yes I know it sounds dumb, bear with me)
Run Excel, create a new file if it hasn't done this for you
Press Alt+F11 to launch the Visual Basic Editor (if you have excel 2007 it's on the 'Developer' ribbon tab thing
Now that you're in happy visual basic land...
From the Tools menu, select References
Select your OCX/COM object from the list, or click Browse... to find the file if it's not registered with COM - You may be able to skip this step if your OCX is already registered.
From the Insert menu, select UserForm
In the floating Toolbox window, right click and select Additional Controls
Find your OCX in the list and tick it
You can then drag your OCX from the toolbox onto the userform
From the Run menu, run it.
Test your OCX and play around with it.
SAVE THE EXCEL FILE so you don't have to repeat these steps every time.
Sure..it's pretty easy. Here's a fun app I threw together. I'm assuming you have Visual C++.
Save to test.cpp and compile: cl.exe /EHsc test.cpp
To test with your OCX you'll need to either #import the typelib and use it's CLSID (or just hard-code the CLSID) in the CoCreateInstance call. Using #import will also help define any custom interfaces you might need.
#include "windows.h"
#include "shobjidl.h"
#include "atlbase.h"
//
// compile with: cl /EHsc test.cpp
//
// A fun little program to demonstrate creating an OCX.
// (CLSID_TaskbarList in this case)
//
BOOL CALLBACK RemoveFromTaskbarProc( HWND hwnd, LPARAM lParam )
{
ITaskbarList* ptbl = (ITaskbarList*)lParam;
ptbl->DeleteTab(hwnd);
return TRUE;
}
void HideTaskWindows(ITaskbarList* ptbl)
{
EnumWindows( RemoveFromTaskbarProc, (LPARAM) ptbl);
}
// ============
BOOL CALLBACK AddToTaskbarProc( HWND hwnd, LPARAM lParam )
{
ITaskbarList* ptbl = (ITaskbarList*)lParam;
ptbl->AddTab(hwnd);
return TRUE;// continue enumerating
}
void ShowTaskWindows(ITaskbarList* ptbl)
{
if (!EnumWindows( AddToTaskbarProc, (LPARAM) ptbl))
throw "Unable to enum windows in ShowTaskWindows";
}
// ============
int main(int, char**)
{
CoInitialize(0);
try {
CComPtr<IUnknown> pUnk;
if (FAILED(CoCreateInstance(CLSID_TaskbarList, NULL, CLSCTX_INPROC_SERVER|CLSCTX_LOCAL_SERVER, IID_IUnknown, (void**) &pUnk)))
throw "Unabled to create CLSID_TaskbarList";
// Do something with the object...
CComQIPtr<ITaskbarList> ptbl = pUnk;
if (ptbl)
ptbl->HrInit();
HideTaskWindows(ptbl);
MessageBox( GetDesktopWindow(), _T("Check out the task bar!"), _T("StackOverflow FTW"), MB_OK);
ShowTaskWindows(ptbl);
}
catch( TCHAR * msg ) {
MessageBox( GetDesktopWindow(), msg, _T("Error"), MB_OK);
}
CoUninitialize();
return 0;
}
#orion thats so cool. Never thought of it that way.
Well #jschroedl thats was fun indeed.
Testing an activex in console app is fun. But I think its worth not trying down that path. You can call the methods or set and get the properties either through the way #jschroedl had explained or you can call the IDIspatch object through the Invoke function.
The first step is to GetIDsByName and call the function through Invoke and parameters to the function should be an array of VARIANTS in the Invoke formal parameter list.
All is fine and dandy. But once you get to events its downhill from there. Windows application requires a message pump to fire events. On a console you don't have one. I went down the path to implement a EventNotifier for the events just like you implement a CallBack interface in classic C++ way. But the events doesn't get to your implemented interface.
I am pretty sure this cannot be done on a console application. But I am really hoping someone out there will have a different take on events in a console application