How could I detect an image on the screen and then act on that detection? For example, if I was running the script (applescript), and looked for the stackoverflow icon and loaded this page, the program would show an alert, then pause the program for 5 seconds, then go back to the original detect image script.
You might take a look at Sikuli - vanilla AppleScript does not know anything about low level stuff like images or screens.
As mentioned you can't do this with applescript. However an alternative might be to detect something on the web page itself. For example if you wanted to detect the stack overflow image at the top of this page you could do that. You wouldn't actually detect the image but you could detect the image name (or path). That's in the html code of the page, so you could check the web page code and check that text for the appropriate image name or path.
The applescript part about having an applescript to perform a task periodically is easy. You just write a stay-open applescript application that performs your task every few seconds. Then a simple variable which turns true for a successful detection would serve as a switch to make the delay happen.
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I writing a Windows program that uses overlays (to show certain states of files). The problem is that they sometimes don't appear (without reboot), although my logs say that the IsMemberOf function executed successfully. I'm not sure if I can force overlay display, but if I can't I would like to at least display a message saying that the icons don't work until reboot.
It there anyway to programmatically tell if icon overlays are not loaded for a particular file/folder?
All my google searches have returned nothing relevant.
I'm writing WPF application
application targets all sort of windows and low performance computers
so I want to write launcher/splash screen for it which will be displayed before application loads
I'm not sure what language to use or what technology
I want it to be very fast and lightweight
can you suggest anything ?
Displaying a flash screen is as easy as popping up a dialog. If the dialog has the various resources such as bit maps already included then it is quite fast. However one issue that will determine this speed is how much other stuff is being initialized at application startup before the code is hit to display the dialog.
So one option would be to have a very simple application that does nothing more than display the flash screen and then start up the actual application. A simple Windows dialog application would do that. You would need to figure out how to synchronize the actual application finishing its initialization and the launching application stopping if you choose this route. There are several techniques for this and the most likely would be to use an interprocess mutex or perhaps just look for a file to be created.
For a point of sale I work with that is launched as part of turning on the terminal we ran into problems in which the application would start before some required system services such as database manager were up and running.
We have found that some environments require much more time than others so a registry variable makes it easy to tweak the delay in the field.
So as part of the application initialization what we did was that when the application starts up, it displays a dialog with a progress bar. The progress bar does a count up and we have a loop that does a one second sleep then increments the progress bar.
The number of seconds to wait is a registry setting for the application with a default value.
One problem we ran into was that when doing development and testing in a debugger, the default value was way too long for impatient programmers wanting to get started so we have condition compile so that if it is a debug compile, the delay is set to a couple of seconds. Otherwise the default is 10 seconds. However it can be changed with a change in the registry value.
See also this Stackoverflow about a launcher.
If you want something realy fast and lightweight, C would be nice.
If you dont want to learn C, you can also make a console application with .NET and C# it's fast too
Edit for comment: You can use a library like SDL wich is very fast and powerfull, and can draw images from a console application.
How can a Delphi XE application show a popup menu inside another application's window? The idea is for a helper-type app, running in the background. On a registered hotkey the application needs to display a popup menu near the text caret or mouse cursor.
Applications that do that are common, here's a menu created by AutoHotkey and displayed in a text editor:
I guess what I'm asking is: how can I display a popup menu at an arbitrary screen location, without it being attached to a Delphi control?
Create a TPopupMenu with the appropriate menu items. When you need to show it simply call Popup passing the top left position in screen coordinates.
PopupMenu1.Popup(X, Y);
#DavidHeffernan answered your question, but you might not have asked the right question.
Let's take the example you gave: the user is running some arbirary application, and you want to be able to detect a hotkey, display a menu, and then take some action based on the menu item chosen (and maybe even the user's context, such as the word under the cursor). This is more complicated than simply displaying a menu at arbitrary screen coordinates.
My recommendation is to use AutoHotKey instead of trying to replicate this in some other programming language. In case you're not aware of this, it is possible for your code to run AutoHotKey scripts. IIRC, you can compile AHK scripts, so you wouldn't need to install AHK, just the compiled scripts. AHK may not be the most elegant of solutions, but it has depth and maturity.
If this is not possible, then I suggest you research Windows Hooks and DLL Injection. Unless you can find some preexisting code or framework, this will entail quite a bit of work.
The reason for this complexity? To augment another program smoothly (without running into problems with focus, etc.) you want to have your code run as part of that other program. The mechanics of this can be done via DLL injection. However, that's only the first step. Once your code is running in the right context, then your code has to inter-operate with the "host" program. This can be tricky (it helps if you have deep experience with Windows messaging and the Windows API). If you want this to work smoothly with any arbitrary program, it gets even harder.
Is it possible to use a certain image for a loading screen when it's the first time the app is ever opened, and then after that use a different image for the loading for all visits after that?
Basically I'm creating about 10 files (not large in size) when the app is first launched and I wanted to display a message to the user so they don't think that the app normally takes more than a second to load up. I know I can display a popup on the home screen, but I have an animation that fires when you go to the home screen and also I need those files created before the user arrives there. Any ideas? Or maybe a different view point that I didn't mention?
You can't change the splash screen. Maybe you should rethink how your initial 10 files are created, and take Paul's suggestion of showing a popup control while you do the work, or better yet, offloading it into the background? I guess it depends if your created files are required for something in the UI
--edit--
Actually, the more I think about it, the more I favour a background thread doing the work while you have a popup control displayed to the user. It would allow you to give the user feedback on what is actually going on. If your popup says something like "Preparing this application for its first run...", and then shows a progress bar that updates when each file is created, the user is getting feedback on exactly why the app is taking so long to load the first time. Otherwise they may think "This app is very slow, I wonder if there is a better one out there"
I'm not sure if this is what you were thinking when you said "Popup", but you could create a full screen Popup (in the System.Windows.Controls.Primitive sense of Popup) that completely covers your main UI so that the user can't see it.
Your temporary loading UI would be defined as a UserControl described in XAML/C# in the same way as a normal PhoneApplicationPage.
When your files are ready and you close the popup you should send a message to the View (i.e. .xaml.cs) of your main page that will cause the animation to be replayed with all contents visible.
I want to write an app for Mac OS X. The app/utility would act according to preset schedule. I will have different time intervals at which I want this app to show a certain image in full screen regarding if there are other apps running at the time.
The real question is how to check this time interval in the background and bring this app in-front and enter full screen. I know how to go full screen, but I am stuck at bringing this app in-front of all other apps.
To schedule a method to be called after an interval, just use NSTimer and one of its +scheduledTimer... methods.
To force your application to be active, call [NSApp activateIgnoringOtherApps:YES].
If you want your window to appear above absolutely everything, including the screensaver, set its level to NSScreenSaverWindowLevel + 1.
The only solution that comes immediately to mind is use AppleScript, e.g. if you execute the following AppleScript from within your app:
tell application "MyBackgroundApp"
activate
end tell
There is an Apple Tech Note with sample code for sending AppleScript from a Cocoa app using NSAppleScript.
How to force Mac window to foreground?