It was easy when the Windows' explorer was using a SysListView32 control for displaying its files list as opposed to the DirectUIHWND control in the subsequent versions of Windows after XP.
A simple task such as obtaining the 'hot item' which is that item (a filename) the mouse hovers above for some hundreds of milliseconds, where before I could use the macros
ListView_GetHotItem with ListView_GetItemText and be able to obtain the filename under the mouse cursor.
This simple task becomes almost impossible to do with the DirectUIHWND window unless I revert this control back to a
SysListView32 which I have seen being proposed as the only solution on the many sites I have searched, and even if used the change does not occur immediately but only after I navigate out of the folder first.
It has taken me almost 2 years trying to find a solution to this and until now I feel stumped.
Anyone any idea please ?
Basically I have subclassed the parent of the tooltip and intercepted the tooltip notifications and all I need is the filename and the full path of the item the mouse hoovers above it, the hot item.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/msdn-magazine/2000/march/windows-2000-ui-innovations-enhance-your-user-s-experience-with-new-infotip-and-icon-overlay-shell-extensions
IQueryInfo is required to provide the runtime text to the shell. IPersistFile is used by Explorer to let the extension know about the specific file currently under the mouse pointer.
Related
So I have looked through existing answers tagged with dockpanel-suite and have not found what I am looking for (as I type this, it is also not appearing in the Similar Questions area). For starters, note that I am NOT asking about saving and restoring the entire Workspace.
So here is the scenario. I have a graphical window (we will call it "Timeline") that is added upon user request. When it is added, it is automatically docked to the bottom-most area of the main form. The user then takes the Timeline window and redocks it somewhere else (could be docked to an edge, or within another docking pane) and changes its docking behavior (floating, auto-hide, tab, etc.).
A demonstrable example is in Visual Studio. If you have the Solution Explorer on a tab within an docked pane on the right and close Solution Explorer, you can go to View -> Solution Explorer and bring it back up again, and it restores to the correct location.
Now the user closes the Timeline window entirely by hitting the [x] on its pane, and in the future, they request to add it to the application again. I want to bring it back in the last dock state and position it was in when it was last closed.
Now, I appear to be able to catch the closing of the pane with the ContentRemoved event, but in there e.Content.DockHandler.Pane, e.Content.DockHandler.PanelPane and e.Content.DockHandler.FloatPane are all null so I have no obvious way to get the previous dock geometry. e.Content.DockHandler.DockPanel is valid, but it is the parent/root docking panel, and calling SaveAsXml(...) does nothing for me because it would get the entire workspace.
Even if I were able to capture it here, information I need. However, I do not appear to be able to simply call LoadFromXml(...) on anything either.
If I try to do it before the DockContent object is added to the DockPanel, DockHandler.DockPanel member is null, so I appear to have no place to restore the XML into, even if I was able to get it.
There are no other events hanging off of DockPanel that seem to be able to help me here.
So - is there a way to do this, and what is the correct way to do it? I want to make sure I am not barking up the wrong tree with trying to capture the dock information as XML when closed and restore it later.
I have toyed with the idea of not actually closing the window but just undocking and hiding it, but have not explored that very far yet. Same with hooking the DockChanged event, but it does not seem to fire on the DockContent objects being docked/floated/etc. and I am not sure why.
Also the solution needs to be robust enough so that I can correctly handle scenarios such as if the last docking parent no longer exists. For example, if it was docked as a tab somewhere, but now that parent window (containing the tabs) has also been closed. I do not know if LoadFromXml, presuming it is the right way to do, is robust enough to handle this scenario, as I have not been able to test it yet.
If I understand the question, what I do is to trap the Closing or FormClosing event, .Hide() the form and set e.Cancel = true. If you are using DockContent, then there is a HideOnClose() that does the work for you. Then when you want to "re-open" the window, you simply use an empty .Show(), and it will Show right where it was when you "closed" it.
As far as saving if the last docking parent no longer exists, I agree with Lex Li, that will take a hack.
I am trying to capture windows hidden behind my application. I am using windows 7 and VC++. I have tried printwindow() function which draws the both non-client and client area of hidden window, but captured window in the device context doesn't show desktop composition effects(aero effects). Instead it shows the captured window with windows 7 basic theme.
I have also tried with GetWindowDC() to retrive the DC of hidden window, and then Bitblt() it to memory DC but the captured window doesn't show non-client area (caption, close button, minimize button etc) correctly.
Anybody faced this issue?
Please help.
Click the link below. It leads to a MSDN site that lists all the existing Windows Functions ever of all history since Windows 95 up to Windows 8 (from period where Microsoft started Windows until present). It shows old windows functions of first Windows and new windows functions added for the new windows.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ff468919(v=vs.85).aspx
Anyway follow this site.
You will see the name of each function as a link.
Click any of them that you are interested.
Each link there leads to another MSDN site that explains all the basics knowledge that you must know about the function before using it, that you want to learn more. What that function does, its purpose, all its parameters and how to use each one, all their flags, all parameters types, return value and at last remarks section that shed more light and sometimes gives tips about the selected function.
Of course, you don't have to read all of them. Find in the list only the necessary functions to fit your needs. The functions that will solve your problem and answer your question that you posted.
By the way, I read your post, and I think that I found in the list the necessary functions that will do what you want to do, I will list them below, and say in one sentence what each does for what you need:
AnimateWindow - Enables you to produce special effects when showing or hiding windows. There are four types of animation: roll, slide, collapse or expand, and alpha-blended fade.
FlashWindow - Flashes the specified window one time. It does not change the active state of the window.
FlashWindowEx - Flashes the specified window specified number of times. It does not change the active state of the window.
Use these functions to achieve the aero effects that you want.
SetWindowPos - Changes the size, position, and Z order of a child, pop-up, or top-level window. These windows are ordered according to their appearance on the screen. The topmost window receives the highest rank and is the first window in the Z order.
Use this function to show the hidden windows on the top side (above all other windows) and on the screen front of you. The operating system will automatically draw the both non-client and client area of these windows without using any gdi, draw and paint functions yourself.
If you want these windows to return back to their previous state (where they were hidden), then save their state with GetWindowPlacement function and later call SetWindowPlacement to bring them back to their hidden state. You can try GetWindowRect and SetWindowPos instead to achieve the same goal.
I also think that you will be interested in GetWindowTheme and SetWindowTheme functions and all the draw theme functions (BackgroundEx, Edge, Icon, Text, TextEx).
There are more theme functions. Find in msdn and in other sites on the web.
I've got some code that grabs the TaskBar buttons and their text from the windows TaskBar using User32.SendMessage with the TB_GETBUTTON message to retrieve a TBBUTTON structure (Win32 API via C# P/Invokes). But I'm trying to figure out how to then, once I have the handle to the button, grab the associated context menu text. There is some status information on there for a specific application that I would like to retrieve. The button text gets me some of it, but I need to the context menu text to complete it.
Any ideas?
This is not completely clear... Context menus don't have text, as such - they have menu items, each one of which will have text. By "context menu text", do you mean the text of the menu items in the taskbar button's popup/context menu? For example, "Restore", "Minimize" etc in the screenshot below?
If so, I suspect you're going about this the wrong way:
This menu doesn't belong to the button, but is the system menu of the window represented by the taskbar button. If the button has a context menu, this is probably for a grouped collection of windows, not one specific window (or even windows for one process.)
Making judgements based on the context menu of a window sounds like a dodgy approach to me, especially based on text since that will change depending on where in the world your user is located. Applications can also change the contents of this menu so there's no guarantee it will contain something you expect to be there. It would be better to check the window style, if it's minimized, etc, to find out the information that also affects the contents of the menu.
I'm going to answer this based on what your needs seem to be from the question, not what you've directly asked, since (a) it's not possible as asked and (b) I think you're trying to do something else. (As a general guideline, in a question it's good to state why you're trying to do something - and even maybe ask about that, ie 'how do I achieve X' - in case there's a better method than the one you're using. Here, X is probably 'find out information about this window' not 'get the text of the context menu', because that's probably only one possible method to get to X.) Also I think extracting data from the internals of a third-party application like Explorer (the taskbar is an Explorer window) is fragile and prone to break in future versions of Windows.
The system menu or window information (whichever one) belongs to application windows. Unless taskbar buttons are grouped (and then it's the subitems) one taskbar button corresponds to one specific window in the system. So what you want to do is find these windows. You do this by:
Using the EnumWindows function
Then for each window that is passed to the callback, checking the extended window style using GetWindowLong with GWL_EXSTYLE to see if the WS_EX_APPWINDOW bit is set
In addition, sometimes other windows are shown: these heuristics should help.
Each one of these windows is a window that should appear on the taskbar, Alt-Tab dialog, etc.
You say you're getting the text of the taskbar button - this is probably the window caption of the window, and GetWindowText is the canonical (read: probably a lot more reliable) way to get the caption of a window belonging to another process.
If you really want the popup menu, then:
Use GetSystemMenu to retrieve the handle for the system menu for the window. Applications can customise this, so if your app is doing this (and that's why you want the popup menu) ensure you pass false to the bRevert parameter
You can then get the number of menu items using GetMenuItemCount and for each one call GetMenuItemInfo to get info about each menu item. Pass true to the fByPosition parameter to indicate you're accessing the menus by position (since you know the count, you're getting item 0, 1, 2... count-1).
This fills a MENUITEMINFO structure, which (I think, I haven't ever had to code this so I haven't tested) will tell you the text associated with an item via the dwTypeData field "if the MIIM_STRING flag is set in the fMask member".
If you really want information about the window status, you can get this information using methods like IsIconic to see if it's minimized, GetWindowLong again to get other information, etc. I'd suggest you ask another SO question about how to get whatever specific information about a window for details.
Hope that helps!
Babylon dictionary and a couple of other dictionaries allow to click on any word in any windows program
and automatically recognize the word under the cursor, and at once open the dictionary window while searching for that word in installed dictionaries.
You can on the other hand open your dictionary, type in your word and press Enter, the result will be the same.
There's a Delphi form, containing a text label, for example with the word "Automaton".
My question is:
How to send a word from my Delphi application right into the dictionary window, as if you typed it manually and pressed Enter?
The best solution is to send some message through the Windows mechanism, but if it is too complicated, there's another solution, and so the second answer: as I described, we need to model a [Ctrl+left mouse] click on a form where this word is displayed on a form [ a visual label on the screen of my Delphi application], to be exact, on some central pixel of this label.
Could you kindly give an advice how to do one thing or another in Delphi ?
** edit:
The problem with AppActivate is this: Babylon dict has a daemon part that seats in the tray.
In the task manager a real window where the text should be input also is named 'Babylon'.
So AppActivate('Babylon') tries to bring to front the non-visual part of the application.
Do you have any suggestion how to determine the windows handle or something of a real visual part of the application? In the task manager, I repeat both visual and non-visual parts are named 'Babylon'.
I cannot offer an answer so much as some insight and advice...
There are certain applications which "intercept" keyboard and mouse instructions, and essentially "nullify" them if they are being immitated by software. Generally-speaking, you'd only see this in proper AntiVirus software such as Kaspersky by design... however:
The way some (not many, but some) programs hook keyboard and mouse inputs, as a side-effect, behave the same way. If you have attempted all of the advice given as comments above, and cannot get Babylon to trigger an action as a result, it is likely Babylon behaves as I have described.
If what I suspect is true, then the method you are attempting is simply not possible (at least, not using any simple Pascal code on its own... ASM might be able to do it but that's beyond my knowledge).
A better solution may be to do a little research to see if any of the following options are available to you:
1) Does Babylon have a Pipeline or API you can use to interface your application(s) with it?
2) Is the particular functionality you require of Babylon accessible through one (or more) DLL files distributed as part of Babylon?
3) Is there an alternative to using Babylon for your needs?
I know it's not an answer as such (certainly not one you'd want to hear), but it may point you in a better direction.
Answers.com has a taskbar application that when you ALT + mouse-click on a word in any program it will pop up a window with information pulled from their website.
My question is-- what are the actual programming mechanics and APIs used to do something like this? I don't have Windows application programming experience and am trying to figure out where to start. How do you access the current word pointed to by the mouse?
Anyone aware of any examples or open source software that does anything like this?
It's been a while and the last time I did something like this it was within my own wysiwyg editor so I had full access to all font characteristics needed to calculate which word was clicked by the mouse.
Maybe there's a n easy way to do this if all your apps are .NET or com or share some other framework which provides a way to retrieve this directly.
Via the API, I would look into hooking the keyboard and mouse messages so that your app can pre-process every mouse click on other applications - start with SetWindowsHookEx and read everything you can about hooking messages.
After getting your app to pre-process the messages, you then need to grab the text being clicked. Since text can be painted onto a device context in many different ways, you may be best off doing a screen scrape of the clicked area because the text may only exist as a bitmap. If this is the case, you have to perform some OCR to translate the scraped bitmap back into text. In other cases, the text may reside in the window as text - the WM_GETTEXT message may return this text from some types of windows (e.g. textboxes, buttons, etc.) but for normal windows, this message only return the title in the caption bar.
Sorry I don't have any definite answer, but this may get you started in the right direction.