I'm getting a warning that PostEvent is deprecated and I assume that one is supposed to use PostEventToQueue but it takes two extra parameters and I can't find any documentation on what combination of parameters (one is a queue specification, the other is an event priority) will be equivalent to PostEvent.
PostEventToQueue is for a Carbon Event, not a low-level OS event like PostEvent. If you want to post a keyboard or mouse event, you should use CGEventPost.
Edit to add: To post a mouse down at the current location, I think (untested) that you can do this:
CGEventRef theEvent = CGEventCreate( NULL );
CGEventSetType( theEvent, kCGEventLeftMouseDown );
CGEventPost( theEvent );
CFRelease( theEvent );
I think it'd be reasonable to assume that using the event queue returned by GetMainEventQueue() (or GetCurrentEventQueue if you're on the main thread), and kEventPriorityStandard for the priority, will get you results equivalent to PostEvent.
Be aware, though, that these only affect your own application. Even the old Event Manager probably doesn't have access to an “Operating System event queue” anymore—I wouldn't be surprised if it's just a wrapper around the Carbon Event Manager version. You'd need to switch to CGEvent stuff if you want to post events that can hit other applications.
Related
I am making an addon in Firefox, so I have a ChromeWorker - which is a privileged WebWorker. This is just a thread other then the mainthread.
In here I have no code but this (modified to make it look like not js-ctypes [which is the language for addons])
On startup I run this code, conn is a global variable:
conn = xcb_connect(null, null);
Then I run this in a 200ms interval:
evt = xcb_poll_for_event(conn);
console.log('evt:', evt);
if (!evt.isNull()) {
console.log('good got an event!!');
ostypes.API('free')(evt);
}
However evt is always null, I am never getting any events. My goal is to get all events on the system.
Anyone know what can cause something so simple to not work?
I have tried
xcb_change_window_attributes (conn, screens.data->root, XCB_CW_EVENT_MASK, values);
But this didn't fix it :(
The only way I can get it to work is by doing xcb_create_window xcb_map_window but then I get ONLY the events that happen in this created window.
You don't just magically get all events by opening a connection. There's only very few messages any client will receive, such as client messages, most others will only be sent to a client if it explicitly registered itself to receive them.
And yes, that means you have to register them on each and every window, which involves both crawling the tree and listening for windows being created, mapped, unmapped and destroyed and registering on them as well.
However, I would reconsider whether
My goal is to get all events on the system.
isn't an A-B problem. Why do you "need" all events? What do you actually want to do?
I've been looking through the documentation on SDL_Events. Is there a way to remove an SDL_UserEvent from the event queue before it gets polled by SDL_PollEvent? I've tried googling "sdl remove event", but came up with bubkis.
You can examine events that are on the queue before taking them out of the queue... and then decide to take them out.
Both can be done with SDL_PeepEvents ( http://wiki.libsdl.org/SDL_PeepEvents ). You can look at the next N events by passing in SDL_PEEKEVENT as the parameter action; or take them out with SDL_GETEVENT.
It should be possible also to take them with SDL_GETEVENT; edit the events array you get to remove the event you wanted discarded; then call it again with SDL_ADDEVENT to put them back.
At this point, though, I'd have to wonder if you're really getting done what you wanted. Why not just poll events, and ignore events of the type you wanted discarded? That's the way I do it.
You can take a look at SDL_FlushEvent or SDL_FlushEvents.
SDL_FlushEvent can be used to remove one specific type of event from the queue, while SDL_FlushEvents can be used with values SDL_USEREVENT and SDL_LASTEVENT in order to remove every user events from the queue.
You might want to use SDL_PumpEvents before, just to update the event queue.
You can also take a look at SDL_PeepEvents (with the same minType and maxType as SDL_FlushEvents).
I don't know of an easy way to remove just ONE event of that type, but you can do:
SDL_FlushEvents(SDL_USEREVENT, SDL_LASTEVENT);
To remove all pending user events already on the queue.
void Game::handleEvent() {
SDL_Event event;
SDL_PumpEvents();
SDL_FlushEvent(SDL_JOYHATMOTION);
SDL_FlushEvent(SDL_JOYAXISMOTION);
SDL_FlushEvent(SDL_CONTROLLERAXISMOTION);
SDL_FlushEvent(SDL_MOUSEMOTION);
SDL_FlushEvent(SDL_MOUSEBUTTONDOWN);
SDL_FlushEvent(SDL_MOUSEBUTTONUP);
SDL_FlushEvent(SDL_FINGERDOWN);
SDL_FlushEvent(SDL_FINGERUP);
SDL_FlushEvent(SDL_FINGERMOTION);
if (SDL_PollEvent(&event))
scene->handleEvent(screen, event)
}
I am using Canon SDK to get the events from the camera. In the SDK, we register a callback function, which is called when a particular event occurs. I have built a Java wrapper, which communicates with the SDK.
But when the event is triggered, my window doesn't get the event directly. Infact on windows, this is how I get the event and dispatch it to myself:
private static final User32 lib = User32.INSTANCE;
boolean hasMessage = lib.PeekMessage( msg, null, 0, 0, 1 ); // peek and remove
if( hasMessage ){
lib.TranslateMessage( msg );
lib.DispatchMessage( msg ); //message gets dispatched and hence the callback function is called
}
Basically one peeps if the window has received an event or not and then proceeds. On Mac, one can do it using Cocoa by having a NSApplication and WindowServer sends events if any.
I am looking for similar alternative using X11. Any sample code/link will suffice.
PS: This a follow up question to this.
I suppose you are looking for XPeekEvent. The Xlib is very well documented and the manpage for XNextEvent(3) says:
The XPeekEvent function returns the first event from the event queue,
but it does not remove the event from the queue. If the queue is
empty, XPeekEvent flushes the output buffer and blocks until an event
is received. It then copies the event into the client-supplied XEvent
structure without removing it from the event queue.
Example code for displaying a basic Xwindow and a main event loop for handling events can be found (for example) on wikibooks.
In a previous SO question it was recommended to me to use callback/event firing instead of polling. Can someone explain this in a little more detail, perhaps with references to online tutorials that show how this can be done for Java based web apps.
Thanks.
The definition of a callback from Wikipedia is:
In computer programming, a callback is
executable code that is passed as an
argument to other code. It allows a
lower-level software layer to call a
subroutine (or function) defined in a
higher-level layer.
In it's very basic form a callback could be used like this (pseudocode):
void function Foo()
{
MessageBox.Show("Operation Complete");
}
void function Bar(Method myCallback)
{
//Perform some operation
//When completed execute the callback method
myCallBack().Invoke();
}
static int Main()
{
Bar(Foo); //Pops a message box when Bar is completed
}
Modern languages like Java and c# have a standardized way of doing this and they call it events. An event is simply a special type of property added to a class that contains a list of Delegates / Method Pointers / Callbacks (all three of these things are the same thing. When the event gets "fired" it simply iterates through it's list of callbacks and executes them. These are also referred to as listeners.
Here's an example
public class Button
{
public event Clicked;
void override OnMouseUp()
{
//User has clicked on the button. Let's notify anyone listening to this event.
Clicked(); //Iterates through all the callbacks in it's list and calls Invoke();
}
}
public class MyForm
{
private _Button;
public Constructor()
{
_Button = new Button();
//Different languages provide different ways of registering listeners to events.
// _Button.Clicked += Button_Clicked_Handler;
// _Button.Clicked.AddListener(Button_Clicked_Handler);
}
public void Button_Clicked_Handler()
{
MessageBox.Show("Button Was Clicked");
}
}
In this example the Button class has an event called Clicked. It allows anyone who wants to be notified when is clicked to register a callback method. In this case the "Button_Clicked_Handler" method would be executed by Clicked event.
Eventing/Callback architecture is very handy whenever you need to be notified that something has occurred elsewhere in the program and you have no direct knowledge of when or how this happens.
This greatly simplifies notification. Polling makes it much more difficult because you are responsible for checking every so often whether or not an operation has completed. A simple polling mechanism would be like this:
static void CheckIfDone()
{
while(!Button.IsClicked)
{
//Sleep
}
//Button has been clicked.
}
The problem is that this particular situation would block your existing thread and have to continue checking until Button.IsClicked is true. The nice thing about eventing architecture is that it is asynchronous and let's the Acting Item (button) notify the listener when it is completed instead of the listener having to keep checking,
The difference between polling and callback/event is simple:
Polling: You are asking, continuously or every fixed amount of time, if some condition is meet, for example, if some keyboard key have been pressed.
Callback: You say to some driver, other code or whatever: When something happens (the keyboard have been pressed in our example), call this function, and you pass it what function you want to be called when the event happens. This way, you can "forget" about that event, knowing that it will be handled correctly when it happens.
Callback is when you pass a function/object to be called/notified when something it cares about happens. This is used a lot in UI - A function is passed to a button that is called whenever the button is pressed, for example.
There are two players involved in this scenario. First you have the "observed" which from time to time does things in which other players are interested. These other players are called "observers". The "observed" could be a timer, the "observers" could be tasks, interested in alarm events.
This "pattern" is described in the book "Design Patterns, Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software" by Gamma, Helm, Johnson and Vlissides.
Two examples:
The SAX parser to parse XML walks
trough an XML file and raises events
each time an element is encountered.
A listener can listen to these
elements and do something with it.
Swing and AWT are based on this
pattern. When the user moves the
mouse, clicks or types something on
the keyboard, these actions are
converted into events. The UI
components listen to these
events and react to them.
Being notified via an event is almost always preferable to polling, especially if hardware is involved and that event originates from a driver issuing a CPU interrupt. In that case, you're not using ANY cpu at all while you wait for some piece of hardware to complete a task.
Is there a way to track which window currently has keyboard focus. I could handle WM_SETFOCUS for every window but I'm wondering if there's an alternative, simpler method (i.e. a single message handler somewhere).
I could use OnIdle() in MFC and call GetFocus() but that seems a little hacky.
So from the way you worded the question I'm inferring that you want to have an event handler which is invoked whenever focus switches between windows. You want to be notified, rather than having to poll.
I actually don't think calling GetFocus from OnIdle is that much of a hack - sure it's polling, but it's low-overhead polling without side effects - but if you really want to track this, Windows Hooks are probably your best choice. Specifically you can install a CBT hook (WH_CBT) and listen for the HCBT_SETFOCUS notification.
Windows calls the WH_CBT hook with this hook code when Windows is about to set the focus to any window. In the case of thread-specific hooks, the window must belong to the thread. If the filter function returns TRUE, the focus does not change.
You could also do with with a WH_CALLWNDPROC hook and listen for the WM_SETFOCUS message.
Depending on whether you make it a global hook, or app-local, you can track focus across all windows on the system, or only the windows owned by your process.
There is an easy way using .Net Framework 3.5 : the library UI Automation provides an event focus changed that fires every time the focus change to a new control.
Page on MSDN
Sample:
public void SubscribeToFocusChange()
{
AutomationFocusChangedEventHandler focusHandler
= new AutomationFocusChangedEventHandler(OnFocusChanged);
Automation.AddAutomationFocusChangedEventHandler(focusHandler);
}
private void OnFocusChanged(object sender, AutomationFocusChangedEventArgs e)
{
AutomationElement focusedElement = sender as AutomationElement;
//...
}
This api in fact use windows hook behind the scenes to do that. However you have to use the .Net Framework...
How about the Win32 GetForegroundWindow?
If you're programming in .net 3.5, the Automation package olorin mentions is by far the easiest, but beware of using it in a program that itself has a UI, at least if the UI is done in WPF -- the focus tracking hooks get confused by events in its own app, and quickly lock up the UI. I sent MS a bug report on it. I have not observed the same problem using a traditional Windows Forms UI. You could, of course, put the tracking code in a separate console app and use some kind of ipc to transmit the info you need.
The tempting alternative of using Interop to access the WH_CBT Windows Hook from C# won't work -- the only global hooks you can get at from C# are the mouse and keyboard.
Well, this may not be very graceful... but you can retrieve the current focused control pretty easily. So you might consider setting up a timer that asks every 1/2 second or so "Where is the current focus?"... Then you can observe changes. Example Delphi code is below; it should be pretty easy to adapt, since the real work is in the Windows API calls.
<snip>
function TForm1.GetCurrentHandle: integer;
var
activeWinHandle: HWND;
focusedThreadID : DWORD;
begin
//return the Windows handle of the currently focused control
Result := 0;
activeWinHandle := GetForegroundWindow;
focusedThreadID := GetWindowThreadProcessID(activeWinHandle,nil);
if AttachThreadInput(GetCurrentThreadID,focusedThreadID,true) then begin
try
Result := GetFocus;
finally
AttachThreadInput(GetCurrentThreadID, focusedThreadID, false);
end;
end; //if attached
end;
procedure TForm1.Timer1Timer(Sender: TObject);
begin
//give notification if the handle changed
//(this code gets fired by a timer)
CurrentHandle := GetCurrentHandle;
if CurrentHandle <> PreviousHandle then begin
Label1.Caption := 'Last focus change occurred # ' + DateTimeToStr(Now);
end;
PreviousHandle := CurrentHandle;
end;
<snip>
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms771428.aspx
Has a window focus tracker sample.
You could monitor messages for the WM_ACTIVATE event.
ref