How to Trigger Event to Interrupt Screensaver (on Windows10) from another Machine - windows

I have two Win10 machines called 'InputPC' and 'OutputPC' (which are not connected).
'OutputPC' displays the content of a google sheet ('Output GSheet').
When data is entered into the 'InputPC' a script runs which triggers a change to the data in 'Output GSheet'.
There is a screensaver running on 'OutputPC' which needs to interrupt when there is change to the content of the 'Output GSheet'.
What would be the easiest (and reliable) way to approach this?
Please note: if programming is required it would greatly simplify if it was either google-script or Python.

Related

How do I monitor the status of a program running in Windows 10?

I know we look at the list of process with tasklist command.
However, what I would like to know is what happens within the process.
First part:
For example, I am running MS Word.
So I click on "File" button. It will cause the drop down box to open.
However, what happens in OS and is there anyway of monitoring this?
(Like a debugger or a log message to track the action that will show like
"MouseClicked Button File" and "Drop down opened")
Second part (If there is no solution to the first part):
As programmers we write programs in different languages like java, C/C++ and so on but all of them are compiled into .exe/.jar files.
So I should be right to say that all of this compiled are readable by the OS so we should be able to write the program to create a software that will be able to do the above all of them are read by the OS.
Third Part:
Please give me some tips to start working on this project that will show the status of a running program.

Is there a way to parent a standard Windows dialog inside another form?

I know it's possible to take a dialog that you built yourself and parent it on another form. But is it possible to parent a standard Windows system dialog on a form that you designed?
Specifically, I'm trying to set up a form with multiple tabs that provide different ways to obtain a reference to data used by the program. One of those tabs should represent the file system, and the ideal way to do this would be with the standard Open dialog that can be instantiated with the COM identifier CLSID_FileOpenDialog.
Is there any way to take a system dialog and cause it to appear parented on another window, without the border, title bar, etc?
There are ways to use a hook, either via SetWindowsHookEx() or SetWinEventHook(), to grab a system dialog's HWND, then you can do whatever you want with it, such as call SetParent(). But just because you CAN does not mean you SHOULD. System dialogs are designed to run as their own windows, not embedded in someone else's window. A better solution might be to use the same Shell display components that are used by Windows Explorer (and system dialogs) via IShellFolder::CreateViewObject() or SHCreateShellFolderView(), or find a third-party solution that does the hard work of interacting with the Shell for you.

Can the last opened file location be directly altered?

As I understand it, when a file open dialog box (such as GetOpenFileName) is used, Windows will automatically remember where the last file was that was opened by the program, and Windows remembers these locations separately for each program. Is there a way to directly alter this, in order to cause the file picking dialog for program X to start in C:\Example\Directory?
I'm attempting to automate a program which has been programmed to work only through a GUI, and I don't have any access to the internals of this program (such as being able to alter how it calls the file picker). Instead, I'm using a mouse macro (via AutoHotkey). If I can be completely sure that the file picker will start in a particular place, I should be able to automate the rest with mouse clicks.
If you had access to the source code, I'd suggest you just change the lpstrInitialDir property of the OPENFILENAME passed to GetOpenFileName().
Outside of that, you'll want to change the registry keys for the MRUs:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ComDlg32
What might make more sense, and might fix the issue you're having, is also changing the Working Directory so that the default location isn't "My Documents", if you're experiencing that.
Depending on the operating system, the results vary:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms646839%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

General Question about a GUI to execute a batch file

I'm new to programming and have taken some classes in it so I'm not sure if this is possible. I want to use a COTS software called 010 Hex Editor and write a script for the program to automate a couple tasks. These tasks can be run from a batch file according to their documentation.
Then I want to instruct the user to eject the device and reinsert it to clear the cache. (This I want done just with a simple pop-up window.
Then I also want to format the device which I assume can be done in a batch file as it can be done through dos on Windows.
My question is, with these 3 steps, can I build a simple GUI that has a button that says, "Start" or something like that, then the pop up window comes up to eject and reinsert, and then another button to format, and another button to exit. I'm not really familiar with what language this could be done in, and how to do this as the C++/Java classes I've taken have been more about syntax and OOP. Thanks!
You can use the windows messenger service to put up an alert - but on newer windows (vista/7) it's a pain to set all the permissions to allow this.
There are lots of free utilities that will popup a dialog from the command line, with a given message and wait for a response.
They are generally called messagebox or msgbox - sorry can't recommend any in particular

Active windows in Windows and QWidget::activateWindow()

The Qt documentation for QWidget::activateWindow() states:
On Windows, if you are calling this
when the application is not currently
the active one then it will not make
it the active window. It will change
the color of the taskbar entry to
indicate that the window has changed
in some way. This is because Microsoft
does not allow an application to
interrupt what the user is currently
doing in another application.
However, Skype appears to defy this rule. If Skype is running but is not the active application, I can launch it from the start menu and it brings the existing instance to the foreground, activates it and grabs input focus.
And how can I do this?
(NOTE: This is specific to how QtSingleApplication works)
The solution is stupidly simple for my issue. Simply call AllowSetForegroundWindow(ASF_ANY); at the beginning of the application, and the original process will thus be allowed to bring itself to the foreground by use of SetForegroundWindow(). No strange hacks, just one line of code to add and no need to modify QtSingleApplication either.
I don't think you can do it reliably with the Qt API alone.
There are multiple solutions for windows. E.g. here, and here, and here.
The method I've used before is to declare a shared memory section, and write the application's window handle there. Later, when a second instance of your program is started, you can find the window handle of the first and activate it.
I don't think you have the issue of windows preventing you from doing this in this case, because your second instance is the active application, so it is allowed to 'pass focus' to other windows.
Use Single Application in Qt Solutions
For some applications it is useful or
even critical that they are started
only once by any user. Future attempts
to start the application should
activate any already running instance,
and possibly perform requested
actions, e.g. loading a file, in that
instance.
you can set the setWindowOpacity from 0 to 1 .the only thing is you may open it all the time

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