When we use WindowFromPoint winapi function we usually can get the case, when Point specifies to some control within a window. And in such cases WindowFromPoint returns handle to that control, not to the window that handles that control.
For example in my small test application if I point to the "body" of chrome browser I get the control with class = Chrome_RenderWidgetHostHWND and its hwnd.
But what I need is to get the "parent" window for that control (which is obviously should be the chrome window).
Traverse the parents using GetAncestor() passing GA_PARENT. This differs from calling GetParent() which will return the owner if the window is a top-level window.
Can't you just use GetParent? Keep traversing until you find the desktop window.
Related
I've been trying to obtain text from a panel that's part of a third-party application; I have the process ID. To do this, I've gone through the usual EnumProcessModulesEx / GetModuleBaseName / EnumWindows / EnumChildWindows steps. This code works when the panel is shown, but when it's hidden, the panel is no longer seen by my code or Spy++. I'd figured the panel must be destroyed and re-created as the user hides and shows the panel, but it turns out that the HWND of the panel is valid in both situations (GetWindow, GetTitle, etc. all return without errors, and with the same information, so the handle hasn't been re-used); the only difference is that its parent is different. When I trace the parent chain back to the root, the topmost parent's title is WindowsFormsParkingWindow, same process ID. I searched for WindowsFormsParkingWindow, and it seems to be a temporary place to "park" a HWND when you don't need it, so you won't have to re-create the window and its children. Does anyone know of an API for traversing the WindowsFormsParkingWindow hierarchy, or some other way of getting to this panel? Thanks for any advice.
WindowsFormsParkingWindow is a message-only window.
You can enumerate message-only windows by calling FindWindowEx with the special window handle HWND_MESSAGE.
Based on information from this blog:
Flashback: Windows Forms Parking Window
The Parking Window is just a generic parent window used for arbitrarily re-parenting child windows onto during parent window recreations. There is no API to query information from the Packing Window itself, such as the original parent window for any given parked child window. Only the original parent/control knows which child HWND(s) have been parked so they can be retrieved when needed.
The best you are likely to accomplish is to detect when the panel is visible, remember that HWND, and then just use that HWND when needed, even when the panel is not visible. Or at least enumerate the WindowsFormsParkingWindow to check if that HWWND is still a child of it, etc. But if the panel is losing its text while parked, then you are likely to be out of luck.
I'm learning Win32 assembly. Have some question I search but not suitable result.
Anyone can explain for me What difference between control's window handle and controlID.
They have nothing in common. Every window has a handle, returned by CreateWindowEx(). Such a window can have a few extra properties attached, like a menu handle. The hMenu argument in CreateWindowEx(). If the window doesn't have a menu, a child window won't have one, then you can use that argument to pass an arbitrary other bit of data. It will be assigned to the GWLP_ID property (see GetWindowLongPtr). Also note the GWLP_USERDATA, an extra property that's entirely yours to use as you see fit.
Dialogs take advantage of this, a dialog template that you create in the resource editor gives you a way to number the child controls. With a helper function like GetDlgItem() to get the handle back for a control with a specific number. Which is pretty necessary for dialogs since it is Windows that create the child controls from the dialog template so you don't know the window handles for them yourself.
I'm writing a window spy type thing to add a feature to an application I have. I've got all the code working, but sometimes WindowFromPoint returns a handle for a control instead of the containing window. For my purposes, I am only concerned with the main containing window. Is there a way for me exclude controls? Or possible detect that the result is a control and recurse upward until I reach the containing window?
You can test for the WS_CHILD flag (GetWindowLongPtr with 'GWL_STYLE') and if it's there call GetAncestor with 'GA_ROOT' as 'gaFlags'.
I'd like to obtain the same values via code. However I'd like to obtain the top-most or root windows in the hierarchy
I seem to have got the Root Parent with
HWND rootWinHandle = GetAncestor(activatedWinHandle, GA_PARENT);
However I can't get the owner window correctly. Tried
HWND rootOwnerWinHandle = GetAncestor(activatedWinHandle, GA_ROOTOWNER);
For a particular modeless dialog, Spy++ returns the Main Exe window whereas the above line returns the input i.e. activatedWinHandle. Am I looking at the wrong api ?
I'd like to obtain this without MFC if possible... coz nothing else in my project requires it.
See the GW_OWNER flag for GetWindow.
The GetParent documentation states:
If the window is a child window, the return value is a handle to the parent window. If the window is a top-level window, the return value is a handle to the owner window.
Try GetParent(). I believe this will return the owner window of a window without the WS_CHILD style, and the parent window of a window with WS_CHILD.
Only bit of insight i can add it from Raymond Chen:
Remember that owner and parent are two
different things.
Modal dialogs disable their OWNERs.
All top-level windows have the desktop
as their PARENT.
From: What's so special about the desktop window?
Special demo (+src):
http://files.rsdn.ru/42164/parentowner.zip
screenshot: http://files.rsdn.ru/42164/parentowner.png
kero
I have this problem. I have an handler to the mainWindow of a certain application, and I want to simulate a keypress on that application...
I'm using sendMessage/postMessage api calls to do this. The reason why I don't use the .Net SendKeys function or the keybd_event of the win32 api, is that they simulate the keypress at a global level. In my case, I may have the application minimized and still want the keypress to be simulated.
The problem with sendMessage and postMessage is that you must pass the handler of the exact childwindow where you want the key to be pressed. For example, in notepad, if I send the key to the mainWindow, nothing happens, I have to send the key to the child window that basically consists of the white canvas where you can write.
With msPaint for example, if a user creates a new document, and opens a textbox in that drawing, and I want to simulate a keypress there, I have to get the childwindow of the childwindow of the mainwindow for it to works.
So I found a way that seemed to work for every situation, basically, I used getWindow with the parameter GW_CHILD, to get the child-window with the highest z-value. Then I do it again for the child window and continue doing it until a certain childWindow has no more childWindows..
And it seemed to work and I was very happy!
However... I found cases where this does not work. Firefox is one of them. Firefox has the mainWindow, and then has a childWindow that's pretty much the same as the mainWindow and then it has another childWindow which is the website area, ie, the area under the address bar and menus. If I am on www.google.com for example, and I want to simulate a keypress in the focused search box, it works, cause getting the child-window of the child-window gives me the correct childWindow. However, if the user clicks on the address bar for example, nothing changes in the way the getWindow works. It will still eventually get the childwindow that's under the address bar, doing nothing, instead of simulating the keypress on the address bar.
The thing is that I haven't found a way of getting the active child window of a certain application. I can only use the GetWindow method to get the child window of a certain window and do it until I find a child window with no childs. However, as you've seen in the firefox case, the active window is actually the parent of the child window that I get in the end.
I've tried other api calls like getTopWindow but I had no luck..
Anyone can put some light on this issue?
Thanks!
If the application violates the windowing rules of windows, you'll need an exception.
In Mozilla, it's like this (IIRC):
There's this 'god' window of the class MozillaUIWindowClass and with the "- Mozilla Firefox" string in its window text.
If you know the position of the address bar you can use the following function:
And provide it with the HWND of the 'god' window and the position of the address bar.
HWND ChildWindowFromPoint(HWND, POINT);
There is probably a better solution, I came up with this since I needed to automate mouse, which is position based.
For more information you might need to consult the sources of particular software, or spend whole day in Spy+. :>
You can use GetGUIThreadInfo to get info about the UI of a particular process.
If you have the main window you can call GetWindowThreadProcessId to obtain the process thread id. Then you can call GetGUIThreadInfo to get info about the active/focused windows, etc.
I also have to point that some applications only have one window and all its controls are windowsless (like Windows Live Messenger).