What format is the time member of a MSG structure? - winapi

The windows messaging system assigns the post time as a DWORD to every message.
typedef struct tagMSG {
HWND hwnd;
UINT message;
WPARAM wParam;
LPARAM lParam;
DWORD time; // <---
POINT pt;
} MSG, *PMSG, *LPMSG;
But I can find no documentation indicating what that DWORD represents. Is it seconds, milliseconds, nanoseconds? From what point in history is it counting?

Found it.
GetMessageTime defines it as the number of milliseconds since the system was started.

Related

Trouble catching WM_INPUT message for lParam, to collect Raw Mouse Input

For my college project I am developing a solution to distinguish between mouse user data from a person with Parkinson's compared to a healthy person. For which I need mouse data, ideally raw.
I presume I have misunderstood how to collect raw mouse input from the WM_INPUT message but I cannot figure it out.
I have been looking at the following thread: How to accurately measure mouse movement in inches or centimetres for a mouse with a known DPI
and Mouse input libraries on github all of which seem to easily catch a WM_INPUT message whose lParam is a handle to some RawInputData with something like this:
GetMessage(&msg, GetActiveWindow(), WM_INPUT, 0);
if (msg.message == WM_INPUT){ .....
And then retreiving the lParam from the message and collecting the data associated with that handle with:
GetRawInputData((HRAWINPUT)lParam, RID_INPUT, lpb, &dwSize, sizeof(RAWINPUTHEADER));
However when I call GetMessage in my main loop, the function never exits!
Consequently there is no way (that i know of) for me to get a handle to the RawInputData. Especially since the MSDN page just assumes you have the lParam already.
In summary I need a method of getting an lParam to pass to the GetRawInputData function which will remain active whether the program is running in the active window of not.
I'm running this code in a blank C++ CLR project in Visual Studio with the "winuser.h" library.
#include "stdafx.h"
#include "Windows.h"
#include "winuser.h"
#ifndef HID_USAGE_PAGE_GENERIC
#define HID_USAGE_PAGE_GENERIC ((USHORT) 0x01)
#endif
#ifndef HID_USAGE_GENERIC_MOUSE
#define HID_USAGE_GENERIC_MOUSE ((USHORT) 0x02)
#endif
int main(array<System::String ^> ^args)
{
RAWINPUTDEVICE Rid[1];
Rid[0].usUsagePage = HID_USAGE_PAGE_GENERIC;
Rid[0].usUsage = HID_USAGE_GENERIC_MOUSE;
Rid[0].dwFlags = 0; //ideally RIDEV_INPUTSINK but that prevents registration
Rid[0].hwndTarget = GetActiveWindow(); //ideally this would be Null to be independent of the active window
if (RegisterRawInputDevices(Rid, 1, sizeof(Rid[0])) == FALSE) {
//registration failed. Call GetLastError for the cause of the error
Console::WriteLine("Registration Error");
}
MSG msg;
while (true) {
while (GetMessage(&msg, GetActiveWindow(), WM_INPUT, 0) != 0) { //this command is never completed
DispatchMessage(&msg); //this line is never ran
}
if (msg.message == WM_INPUT) {
Console::WriteLine("caught a message!!!");
}
}
}
Issue solved after much more research I found the winAPI walk through which I followed fixing the issue above by adding an:
int WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE unused, PSTR cmd, int show) {.....}
Function to register devices and create a window then call GetMessage which calls LRESULT CALLBACK WndProc(HWND hwnd, UINT msg, WPARAM wp, LPARAM lp) {....} with the parameters occupied by the message ID,WParam and LParam corresponding the message event.
For anyone stuck with a similar issue follow this MSDN guide: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb384843.aspx

How can I get the mouse cursor type in windows (default, hand, wait, resize etc)?

I would like to receive a notification when the mouse cursor change from arrow to hour glass etc.
Until now I managed to get notified for mouse position change events, but I can not figure out how to get the cursor type. It looks like the PCURSORINFO struct does not contain any information about the cursor type.
This is the code I have until now:
static LRESULT CALLBACK WinEventCallback(_In_ int nCode,
_In_ WPARAM wParam,
_In_ LPARAM lParam)
{
PCURSORINFO curInfo;
curInfo->cbSize = sizeof(curInfo);
GetCursorInfo(curInfo);
}
void MouseCursorHook::setMouseCursorHook()
{
HHOOK evntHook = SetWindowsHookEx(WH_MOUSE_LL,
WinEventCallback,
GetModuleHandle(0),
0
);
}
First off, your call to GetCursorInfo() is wrong. You are passing it an uninitialized pointer. It should be like this instead:
CURSORINFO curInfo = {};
curInfo.cbSize = sizeof(curInfo);
GetCursorInfo(&curInfo);
Second, CURSORINFO has a hCursor field. You can compare that against the return value of LoadCursor()/LoadImage() to see if a standard cursor is being used or not. You will have to compare each standard cursor individually, though.

Understanding: conversion from long_ptr to bool possible loss of data

I am fresh off from learning C++ and to learn winapi, I am doing the Forgers Win32 API tutorial.
Here is my code:
//MyControl.h
#pragma once
#include <windows.h>
#include "resource.h"
BOOL CALLBACK DlgProc(HWND hwnd, UINT Message, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam);
BOOL BrushExists(HBRUSH hBrush);
-------------------------------------------------------
//MyControl.cpp
#include "MyControl.h"
HBRUSH g_hbrBackground = NULL;
int WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance,
LPSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow)
{
return (int)DialogBox(hInstance, MAKEINTRESOURCE(IDD_MAIN), NULL, (DLGPROC)DlgProc);
}
BOOL BrushExists(HBRUSH hBrush) // I added this to better understand what is happening
{
if (hBrush)
return TRUE;
else
return FALSE;
}
BOOL CALLBACK DlgProc(HWND hwnd, UINT Message, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam)
{
switch (Message)
{
case WM_INITDIALOG:
{
g_hbrBackground = CreateSolidBrush(RGB(0, 0, 0));
//... Other code skipped copy pasting ...
}
break;
case WM_COMMAND:
//... Other code skipped copy pasting ...
break;
case WM_CTLCOLORDLG:
return (LONG_PTR)g_hbrBackground; // Where casting happens
// return BrushExists(g_hbrBackground); // Tried this to understand things
break;
case WM_CTLCOLORSTATIC:
{
HDC hdcStatic = (HDC)wParam;
SetTextColor(hdcStatic, RGB(255, 255, 255));
SetBkMode(hdcStatic, TRANSPARENT);
return (LONG_PTR)g_hbrBackground; // Where casting happens
// return BrushExists(g_hbrBackground); // Tried this to understand things
}
break;
//... Other code skipped copy pasting ...
}
The code compiles and gives the warning: C4244: 'return': conversion from 'LONG_PTR' to 'BOOL', possible loss of data
The casting works and the dialog box is colored right as expected:
Black colored dialog.
My question: What happens in the background when HBRUSH is returned as a LONG_PTR from a function (DLGPROC) that returns BOOL? My assumption from reading C++ was that if the LONG_PTR is non-zero then the BOOL returned is TRUE and if LONG_PTR is zero then the BOOL returned is FALSE. To check this I created the function BOOL BrushExists(HBRUSH hBrush);// See code. Using this function to check for the HBRUSH and return TRUE, compiles without warnings and runs without error. But the coloring of the Dialog box does not happen:
Black color missing.
So my assumption is wrong. The LONG_PTR seems to be evaluated by the win32 API as a number instead of as a BOOL. Can someone explain to me how this is happening?
Note that it's BOOL and not bool. With the Windows SDK, BOOL is a typedef for int, which can store a 32-bit value - it's not a simple boolean that can only store true or false.
This is a kludge in the API basically. In 32 bit Windows, a brush handle fits in a 32 bit value, and even though it's ugly and potentially confusing, it's "safe" to return a brush handle cast as a BOOL (and you had to cast it, since that's what DialogProc was defined as returning).
Once Windows gained 64 bit support this situation obviously wasn't acceptable - in this example, brush handles (which are pointers) are 64 bits in size - casting them to a 32-bit type isn't safe.
Therefore, the definition of DialogProc was changed to return INT_PTR rather than BOOL. This is typedefed to 32-bits in x86 and 64-bits in x64. The example code you've used obviously pre-dates this change, but all new code should use the correct definition of DialogProc as returning INT_PTR.
BOOL is nothing but int typedef'd.
LONG_PTR may be either long int or __int64 - depending on platform chosen.
From header:
#ifdef _WIN64
typedef __int64 LONG_PTR;
#else
typedef long LONG_PTR;
#endif
You seem to be building the project as x64 compiler, and hence BOOL to LONG_PTR (essentially int to int64) is giving you warning.
Note that int and long are essentially same on Visual C++/Windows.

Why can't I bind to winproc?

I am trying to use C++11 to solve my favorite pointer problem
LRESULT CALLBACK renderMan::WindowProc(HWND hWnd, UINT msg, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam);
//some code
WNDPROC crazy = bind(&renderMan::WindowProc,this,std::placeholders::_1,std::placeholders::_2,std::placeholders::_3,std::placeholders::_4);
The error
1>renderman.cpp(50): error C2440: 'initializing' : cannot convert from 'std::_Bind<_Forced,_Ret,_Fun,_V0_t,_V1_t,_V2_t,_V3_t,_V4_t,_V5_t,<unnamed-symbol>>' to 'WNDPROC'
1> with
1> [
1> _Forced=true,
1> _Ret=LRESULT,
1> _Fun=std::_Pmf_wrap<LRESULT (__cdecl glSurface::* )(HWND,UINT,WPARAM,LPARAM),LRESULT,glSurface,HWND,UINT,WPARAM,LPARAM,std::_Nil,std::_Nil,std::_Nil>,
1> _V0_t=glSurface *const ,
1> _V1_t=std::_Ph<1> &,
1> _V2_t=std::_Ph<2> &,
1> _V3_t=std::_Ph<3> &,
1> _V4_t=std::_Ph<4> &,
1> _V5_t=std::_Nil,
1> <unnamed-symbol>=std::_Nil
1> ]
1> No user-defined-conversion operator available that can perform this conversion, or the operator cannot be called
The Problem
A WNDPROC is a pointer to a function with a certain signature using the __stdcall calling convention.
std::bind returns a function object not a function pointer. Although, at the source code level, the function object can be used almost identically to a function pointer, the fact remains that it is a completely different type. No amount of casting will solve this.
Since you're binding a this pointer with the renderMan::WindowProc method, it's clear that renderMan::WindowProc is not a static member function, and thus it uses the thiscall calling convention. So even if you could get a pointer to it and hand it to Windows, Windows wouldn't call it with the right calling convention.
Solutions
The most common way to handle this is to have a nonmember function (or static member function) registered as the WNDPROC. That function looks up the this pointer associated with the window, and forwards it to your member function.
LRESULT CALLBACK WndProcHelper(HWND hwnd, UINT msg, WPARAM wp, LPARAM lp) {
renderMan *that = LookUpPointer(hwnd);
assert(that != nullptr);
return that->WndProc(hwnd, msg, wp, lp);
}
The details of LookUpPointer will vary depending on your approach. It sounds like you solved it just by having a global variable and thus just one window instance.
If you need multiple windows instantiated from this window class, you could maintain a global (or class-static) table mapping the HWNDs to the renderMan pointers. When you create a new instance, you add it to the table, and then you have a simple implementation for LookUpPointer:
std::map<HWND, renderMan*> g_windows;
renderMan *LookUpPointer(HWND hwnd) {
// If there isn't an entry for hwnd in the map, then this will
// will create one, associating it with nullptr.
return g_windows[hwnd];
}
This can have some chicken and egg problems, though, since you will get some messages during the CreateWindow call, before you've gotten the HWND back and had a chance to add it and the pointer to the map. For example:
// ... inside a renderMan constructor ...
m_hwnd = CreateWindow(L"renderMan", /* ... */);
g_windows[m_hwnd] = this; // already too late for some messages
Another common approach, which solves the chicken and egg problem, is to stash the renderMan pointer in the creation parameters, and have special logic in your WndProcHelper to add it to the map during creation.
// ... inside the renderMan constructor ...
m_hwnd = CreateWindow(L"renderMan", /* ... */, reinterpret_cast<LPVOID>(this));
// ... and then ...
LRESULT CALLBACK WndProcHelper(HWND hwnd, UINT msg, WPARAM wp, LPARAM lp) {
static std::map<HWND, renderMan*> windows; // still static, but not global :-)
LRESULT result = 0;
renderMan *that = nullptr;
if (msg == WM_NCCREATE) {
auto pCreateStruct = reinterpret_cast<const CREATESTRUCT*>(lp);
that = reinterpret_cast<renderMan*>(pCreateStruct->lpCreateParams);
windows[hwnd] = that;
} else {
that = windows[hwnd];
}
if (that != nullptr) {
result = that->WndProc(hwnd, msg, wp, lp);
}
if (msg == WM_NCCDESTROY) {
windows.erase(hwnd);
}
return result;
}
Caution: This is simplistic code without enough error checking for the purposes of illustrating the idea. A clean and complete implementation would handle errors more gracefully, log unexpected things (like missing entries), etc.
C API's with callbacks almost always provide a "user data" field for this purpose -- passing your own context structure or object (i.e. the 'this' pointer) through to the callback.
In this case, the userdata does exist, which means there's no need for any std::map shenanigans, however it is kind of hidden away. The APIs that you're looking for are:
SetWindowLongPtr( hwnd, GWLP_USERDATA, your_user_data )
your_user_data = GetWindowLongPtr( hwnd, GWLP_USERDATA )
WNDPROC is a function pointer while the result of bind is a function object. and as the compiler says, it can´t be converted to WNDPROC.
you could do:
auto crazy = bind(.....)
std::function<LRESULT CALLBACK(HWND, UINT, WPARAM, LPARAM)> crazy = bind(...)
but i guess that doesn´t solve your problem. i think there´s no way to do this without a free function. maybe like this:
std::function<LRESULT CALLBACK(HWND, UINT, WPARAM, LPARAM)> crazy;
LRESULT CALLBACK myWindowProc( HWND hWnd, UINT Msg, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam )
{
if(!crazy)
return (LRESULT)nullptr;
return crazy(hwnd,Msg,wParam,lParam)
}
//and then somewhere in your renderMan:
crazy = bind(&renderMan::WindowProc,this,std::placeholders::_1,std::placeholders::_2,std::placeholders::_3,std::placeholders::_4);
// wherever you want:
SetWindowLongA( hwnd, GWL_WNDPROC, ( LONG )myWindowProc );
The solution was to use a global variable. That way the constructor binds the this variable to another variable like that. This works for a singleton pattern, although I feel my initial question remains unanswered.

Create a native Windows window in JNA and some GetWindowLong with GWL_WNDPROC

Good day,
I have been using JNA for a while to interact with the Windows API and now I am stuck when creating a window. As far as I have done the following:
1. Have created a child window of an existing window and obtained a valid handler to it.
2. Understood that every window in Windows has a non-stop message-dispatch loop.
3. Understood that the best way to include my window in the message-dispatch loop is to use something like the following code (not mine, but that is what I would do as well):
final LONG_PTR prevWndProc = new LONG_PTR(User32.INSTANCE.GetWindowLong(hwnd, User32.GWL_WNDPROC)); //this is to obtain a pointer to the WNDPROC of the parent window, which we are going to need later
wndProcCallbackListener = new WndProcCallbackListener()
{
public LRESULT callback(HWND hWnd, int uMsg, WPARAM uParam, LPARAM lParam)
{
if (uMsg == WTSAPI.WM_POWERBROADCAST)
{
System.out.println("WM_POWERBROADCAST Event: hWnd="+hwnd+", uMsg="+uMsg+", uParam="+uParam+", lParam="+lParam);
}
else if (uMsg == WTSAPI.WTS_SESSION_CHANGE)
{
System.out.println("WTS_SESSION_CHANGE Event: hWnd="+hwnd+", uMsg="+uMsg+", uParam="+uParam+", lParam="+lParam);
}
//Call the window's actual WndProc so the events get processed.
return User32.INSTANCE.CallWindowProc(prevWndProc, hWnd, uMsg, uParam, lParam);
}
};
//Set the WndProc function to use our callback listener instead of the window's one.
int result = User32.INSTANCE.SetWindowLong(hwnd, User32.GWL_WNDPROC, wndProcCallbackListener);
However, my problem is when I call the GetWindowLong() for the parent window (my first line of code) I get a 0 for the pointer which indicated the function did not complete successfully. A subsequent call to GetLastError() and a quick check in the error codes give me an 'Access is denied' error. This, of course, is logical, since I am trying from my own thread to access the address of the WNDPROC of another, but I was wondering if there is any way (there should be, of course) to circumvent that.
Any pointers? (pun intended)
Do not use GetLastError() after a JNA call. JNA & JNI may call other APIs that may change the last error. Declare SetWindowLong with the clause throws LastErrorException, like this:
int SetWindowLongA(int hWnd, int nIndex, WndProcCallbackListener dwNewLong)
throws LastErrorException;
Notice the 'A' after the name. It makes explicit use of ANSI version. You could use SetWindowLongW as well.
Make sure your callback implements both Callback and StdCall. I prefer using primitive types as much as possible, because this makes mapping fast and obvious to JNA:
public interface WndProcCallbackListener extends Callback, StdCall {
int callback(int hWnd, int Msg, int wParam, int lParam);
}

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