I have a small windows program and I want it to only run when the windows user is active. As soon as the user is inactive (for example no more mouse/keyboard events) I want to make my program go to sleep and wait until the user is back to the keyboard.
The program I use is working minimized in the tray only. I want it to work like an inverse screensaver. As soon as the user is away for X minuites, I want it to stop and run again as soon as the user is back.
So how do I get the informations or events when my window is minimized or the mouse is moved outside of my window? Maybe some trick of how screensavers do it is also helpfull?
The comment by Roger Rowland solved my Question!
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I'm a developer and a long-time Windows user with an obsession about making my system as convenient to use as possible.
Yesterday I thought about something that has always annoyed me in Windows and that I've taken for granted, and I realized that I have a better idea for how it could work, and I'm now wondering whether it's possible to tweak Windows to work like that.
The thing that annoys me is when windows steal focus. For example, I could be running an installer for some program. While it's working, I'll switch to my browser and browse, maybe entering some text into an email in my browser. Then suddenly the installer finishes and its window steals the focus. Now I'm in the middle of writing an email, so I might press a key that happens to be bound to a button on that installer, and then that button gets invoked, doing some action that I never intended to happen!
This is doubly annoying to me because I'm using a multiple-desktop program called DexPot, and when a window steals focus, it also brings itself to the desktop I'm currently on, which can be really annoying, because then I have to put it back into its original desktop.
How my ideal solution to this problem would work: Every time a window tries to steal focus, we intercept that, and don't let it. We show something like a toaster message saying "Foobar installer wants focus, press Win-Whatever to switch to it". If and when you press the key combo, it switches to the window.
The question is: Is there an easy way to tweak Windows to make this happen? I know very little about Windows programming. I do know AHK and if it's possible with that, that'd be great.
No, there isn't an easy way to add this behavior, but Windows tries to do this automatically.
In theory apps shouldn't be able to steal the foreground while you're actively using another app. Unfortunatly there are some scenarios where Windows can't tell the difference between legitimate user actions that should change the foreground and unwanted foreground-theft. The window manager generally tightens up the holes a bit with each new version of Windows, but also needs to make sure that apps can come to the foreground when the user wants them to, even if that desire is expressed indirectly.
For example, a process launched by the current foreground process can put a window into the foreground. This is necessary so that when a user launches a window from Explorer the newly launched process can open its main window. This permission only lasts until the next user input, so if an application is slow to launch and you start working on an email the app may lose its foreground permissions before it can use them.
See the SetForegroundWindow function documentation for a list of requirements for a process to be able to set a window into the foreground.
There are also apps which specifically make use of these requirements to steal the permission (by joining the foreground queue or synthsising user input to themselves), but I suspect in your installer scenario it is accidental.
I'm not sure what exactly is going on, but I suspect that the problem comes from the installer running as a service and accidentally stealing the foreground permission when it tries to launch the app on your current desktop.
It would be theoretically possible for an external process to hook into the foreground system to override this and show your confirmation toast, but it would be tricky to get right and would require significant low level code (I'd probably start with a CbtHook). It would not be possible in a scripting package like AHK (assuming you mean AutoHotKey) but would need to be native C/C++ code injected into every running process.
By now everyone writing for Windows probably knows that applications cannot (officially) steal focus from foreground processes, and why. But I have just managed to steal focus, inadvertently, and don't understand how this is even possible.
I have a Delphi app that user brings up with a hotkey (or by a mouse click, or by Alt+Tab), selects a piece of text and hits Enter. My app then minimizes (hides to the tray, even), and pastes the text user just selected into the active window. Nothing new here, plenty of similar projects out there - clipboard extenders, glossaries, macro programs, etc.
What is puzzling to me is that after doing all the above and then sleeping for 1500 ms, I restore my main form and it gets the focus back! It becomes the foreground window, even though it wasn't 1500 ms ago (tested; Windows 7 32-bit.).
In fact, I don't want this at all, so before restoring my main form I record which window has foreground and I give it back to that window after it's been given to me. I'm just curious why my app gets to be in the foreground when by rules it should not. Maybe I don't understand the rules as fully as I thought I did?
If you look at the documentation for SetForegroundWindow you see a list of conditions for the call to succeed, one of them is "The process received the last input event." So if the user does not do anything after pressing enter in your app you still have the right to steal focus. I don't know if Delphi calls SetForegroundWindow for you when the window is restored but it might be something to look into.
I don't know how you restore your window but using SW_SHOWNOACTIVATE with ShowWindow might help...
I'm trying to make an simple anti-idle script (that moves the mouse or whatever) to prevent an application from stopping.
How can I keep it running after screen lock ?
It seems like this is explained in the Autoit faq :
http://www.autoitscript.com/wiki/FAQ#Why_doesn.27t_my_script_work_on_a_locked_workstation.3F
On locked station any window will never be active (active is only dialog with text "Press Ctrl+Alt+Del") In Windows locked state applications runs hidden (behind that visible dialog) and haven't focus and active status.
So generally don't use Send() MouseClick() WinActivate() WinWaitActive() WinActive() etc.
Instead use ControlSend() ControlSetText() ControlClick() WinWait() WinExists() WinMenuSelectItem() etc. This way you may have your script resistive against another active windows. It's possible to run such script from scheduler on locked Windows station.
You can't automate anything after your screen is locked. User input is simply ignored. A much easier way would be to prevent your screen from locking, for example, by moving the mouse randomly every 30 seconds.
i am using the createdesktop api to create a desktop and i would like to take a screenshot or send input mouse/keyboard without dispalying the desktop to the user.any ideeas on how to implement this???
The short answer that I've found is that you can't. You can't take a screenshot of an inactive desktop because there are no paint calls because there are no visible windows to redraw.
You can do a SwitchDesktop() call, screen shot, then SwitchDesktop() back. The user won't notice it, but you likely won't get much in the screen shot because in this short time the windows haven't had time to redraw.
Another thing is, you have to make a new thread to call SetThreadDesktop(). If you use your main thread to do so, it will fail when using a GUI application. SetThreadDesktop() fails when you have a window in the current desktop.
SysInternals has an application to manage multiple desktops (like the linux desktop switch). When your about to pick a desktop to switch to it will show you a thumbnail of the desktop. This thumbnail is not live, it is captured by the last known full redraw when the user is in that desktop. In short, if SysInternals can't do a live screenshot I doubt any of us will.
This is of course based on my own research of this exact feature. If someone has actually gotten it to work I'd love to know so I can't use it too!
Edit: This won't work for invisible desktops, I've looked to my old code, and I see that I needed that for catching screenshot of active desktop (which was not 'WinSta0\Default'), to get handle of active user desktop I've used OpenInputDesktop.
+1 ThievingSix you are right.
Sorry everyone for my misunderstanding.
You need to use SetThreadDesktop (if you are creating desktop by CreateDestkop, then you have handle for it which you pass to SetThreadDesktop). After switching desktop for thread, you can catch screenshot. Good idea would be revert to previous desktop for thread (to not 'break' other/future code).
var
lOldDesktop: HDESK;
begin
lOldDesktop:= GetThreadDesktop(GetCurrentThreadId);
try
if not SetThreadDesktop(ADesktop) then // pass handle to your desktop, or dekstop handle obtained from OpenInputDesktop
{error handle, like RaiseLastOSError or Exit(False)};
// your screenshot/input/mouse code here
finally
if lOldDesktop<> 0 then // GetThreadDesktop can fail (I don't know condition when this GetThreadDesktop(GetCurrentThreadId) could fail)
SetThreadDesktop(lOldDesktop); // revert thread to previous desktop
end;
end;
This code should run in non-main thread, as ThievingSix pointed because SetThreadDesktop can fail in that case. Safe way is spawn thread to make screenshot.
PS. I'm not sure if this will work with "send input mouse/keyboard" (it should), but for screenshot works.
Edit:
More on sessions, window stations, desktops here http://blogs.technet.com/b/askperf/archive/2007/07/24/sessions-desktops-and-windows-stations.aspx
Desktop tool (SysInternals) - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/cc817881
I don't really know where to begin. Let's start with the stupid questions:
What language should I use for this? What is suited for the task at hand?
Next, the real ones:
Is there a way to stop the screensaver from starting, short of changing the cursor position? If not, will changing the cursor position even work?
SetThreadExecutionState will prevent the screensaver from coming on or the machine from automatically going to sleep if you pass the ES_CONTINUOUS and ES_DISPLAY_REQUIRED flags.
I wrote an app awhile ago that does exactly what you are asking for. It runs as an icon in the System Tray, not the Taskbar, and uses a global message hook to disable the WM_SYSCOMMAND/SC_SCREENSAVE notification from reaching any applications. If that notification does not reach the DefWindowProc() function, the screen saver will never run.
Your program does not need to be visible in the task bar at all.
You don't even need a program at all, if you can disable the screensaver in the registry.
What you want to do can perhaps be achieved by sending a MOUSE_MOVE event to the desktop window. If you want to use C# (the only language I am current with right now), you can look at this article, but maybe a simple C program using the WinAPI is better suited for this task.
.NET will easily allow you to put an application in the system tray (checkout the NotifyIcon object in System.Windows.Forms.Controls).
I believe you can use the SetCursorPos (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms648394(VS.85).aspx) API call to prevent the screen saver, just make sure you set them to the current location so you don't actually move the mouse.