I want to create a window that can display the current content of an application, say Powerpoint or Adobe Reader.
When I run my application, I would first select which of the currently running application I need to monitor in realtime. Once done, I need to get the current content of the selected application and display it. Since my application is going to be realtime, it will need to capture the contents of the selected application as and when they change (with minimal lag), and then display it.
As I understand, this broadly comprise of the following steps:
1. Selecting an application that I want to monitor
2. Get 'notification' when the content of that applicaion (client area) has changed
3. Capture the new content and display it
The steps [1] and [3] are quite easy and I find several methods here to perform them. However, for the stage [2] I am still clueless. Can anybody throw some light on how to acheive this?
Cheers.
You might take a look at UltraVNC, which does exactly what you are trying to do (it has a single window mode as well as full-screen). It has no less than four ways to accomplish your step #2.
The one obvious approach I can think of is to periodically take snapshots of the app's window and compare it to the previous one for changes.
Related
I am developing a testing algorithm for our iOS apps using Appium. To fully implement this algorithm i need to identify wither i have moved onto different screen or am still on the same screen after performing some action. I need to know, what makes every screen unique/different from other in terms of Appium?
Going through the pageSource of every screen, i found that most screens have xpath attribute in window element. Can i use value of xpath of window element to mark the screen as unique from others, or do i need to do a trivial string comparison between screen's pageSources to mark them different? Or is there any other better solution?
Not sure if xpath would be the best solution for this. Normally the UIAWindow would remain the same, and developers might use different containers within this UIAWindow to render different screens.
So to verify different screens, you might need to figure out what this container is and see if the container's properties change when you move to a new screen (ie a new container)
If you app user a different header for every new screen, then you can use this header to see if the screen is changed. Example: in WhatsApp, you would see a different persons at the top. So in this case, the person's name can be assumed as the header.
If this doesn't work then you can verify some of the other controls, or say list of all the UIAStaticText on the screen. During screen change the entire list of UIAStaticText might change. So this can indicate a screen change.
For our automation suite at work I've implemented a series of screen check steps. Every time we switch screens I do a find_element command for an element on that screen that is unique to that screen. That way if a button or option takes me to a new screen that is incorrect my test will fail as expected. If it does find the element we're expecting it adds minimal time to the test suite.
Anish Pillai made a good suggestion of using the header text if there is any. Otherwise a particular tab, menu text, resource_id, or whatever is unique about the page would suffice. All you would need to do is a find_element call and a failure message if it fails.
I am making a program that sweeps software parameters of a DUT and logs measurements from various instruments while doing so.
To make this program more flexible, I want the user to be able to configure an arbitrary set of instruments (including multiple of the same kind) to log measurements from. Each instrument has different configuration parameters.
What i need is a dynamic UI, where I can add (and remove) Instruments and have a different configuration UI for each instrument.
I made a little sketch of what I have in mind: UI proposal
What I tried so far is to have an Array of a Cluster with a Subpanel in it, but all the Subpanels in the Array show the same VI.
A simple way of doing this is 2 subpanels. One stays on the main screen with your current vi running. When you want to switch vis load the new vi into the off screen subpanel. Move the positions of the subpanels so that the new one is on screen. Unload the old one and allow the new one to start. The old one is now ready for the next vi to run
Instead of a cluster or an array, the basic idea for making something like this work is to have one subpanel which will contain multiple subpanels inside it and populate/position/resize/show/hide them, etc.
See this thread for a discussion and a basic example I posted there - http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/Independent-cursors-on-array-of-cluster-of-graphs-or-work-around/m-p/2319700#M728304
(Note - that thread shows a discussion and expansion on the topic. The original simpler example is here - http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/User-interface-problem-list-of-clusters/m-p/2311770#M726599 )
While I always liked the idea of this, I never actually needed it for an actual UI, so I don't think I have anything to add beyond this example. Also note that the example is very crude and only meant to demonstrate this concept.
Note that there are two ways of handling the number of panels - have enough to be displayed and control which VIs they show based on the scroll bar or create "enough" subpanels and control their visibility.
I've been searching for a mouse broadcaster for Mac for a while and it seems there are no solutions for doing this, so I must look for alternative solutions now. I'm wondering if AppleScript is capable of performing such a task. Basically, what I would like to do is read mouse position and action when performed in one application for as long as the script is active, and broadcast/replicate it in one or more other applications. Is AppleScript capable of this?
Just to clarify, I'd need to simulate mouse movement in the other applications... for example, if I opened up several instances of a drawing program, assuming that the program had the same resolution, anything I drew in the main program, would replicate on the other programs.
Really applescript cannot do what you need. It's not made for that. Applescript is made to run the commands in an application's applescript dictionary. I assume that the dictionary of the applications you want to control give you no way to read and control the mouse.
You do have an applescript alternative though. I have made a command line tool to read the mouse position and also to move the mouse. So theoretically you can do what you want with applescript and my tool. I do not believe you will get the results you expect though. Anyway you can try. Here's a link to the web page for my tool. I hope it helps.
Get it here.
Your basic approach could be 1) activate the application you want to read the mouse position, 2) run my tool in a repeat loop and record the mouse positions, 3) activate the second application that you want to duplicate the mouse movements, 4) use a repeat loop with my tool to make the mouse move according to how you recorded it.
I have a bit of a challenge.
In an earlier version of our product, we had an error message window (last resort, unhandled exception) that showed the exception message, type, stack trace + various bits and pieces of information.
This window was printscreen-friendly, in that if the user simply did a printscreen-capture, and emailed us the screenshot, we had almost everything we needed to start diagnosing the problem.
However, the form was deemed too technical and "scary" for normal users, so it was toned down to a more friendly one, still showing the error message, but not the stack trace and some of the more gory details that I'd still like to get. In addition, the form was added the capabilities of emailing us a text file containing everything we had before + lots of other technical details as well, basically everything we need.
However, users still use PrintScreen to capture the contents of the form and email that back to us, which means I now have a less than optimal amount of information to go on.
So I was wondering. Would it be possible for me to pre-render a bitmap the same size as my form, with everything I need on it, detect that PrintScreen was hit and quickly swap out the form contents with my bitmap before capture, and then back again afterwards?
And before you say "just educate the users", yes, that's not going to work. These are not out users, they're users at our customers place, so we really cannot tell them to wisen up all that much.
Or, barring this, is there a way for me to detect PrintScreen, tell Windows to ignore it, and instead react to it, by dumping the aformentioned prerendered bitmap onto the clipboard ready for placing into an email?
The code is C# 3.0 in .NET 3.5, if it matters, but pointers for something to look at/for is good enough.
Our error-reporting window has these capabilities:
Show a screenshot that was taken when the error occured (contains all the open windows of the program at the time, before the error dialog was shown)
Show a text file containing every gory detail we can think of (but no sensitive stuff)
Save the above two files to disk, for latter attaching to an email or whatnot by the user
Sending the above two files to us by email, either by opening a new support case, or entering an existing support case number to add more information to it
Ignore the problem and hope it goes away (return to app)
Exit the application (last resort)
We still get screenshots from some users. Not all, mind you, so my question is basically how I can make the PrintScreen button help us a bit more for those users that still use it.
One option: Put the stack trace and other scary stuff into the error screen using small, low-contrast type -- e.g. dark gray on light gray -- so that the user doesn't really even see it, but the Print Screen captures it.
But if you want to detect the PrintScreen and do your own thing, this looks like an example of what you want.
Wouldn't it be possible to disable the Print Screen button altogether when the error popup is active? Have it display a message along the lines of "Please use the clearly visible button in the middle of your screen to report the error" I agree it breaks expected functionality, but if your users are really that stupid, what can you do...
Alternatively, have it report errors automatically (or store the data locally, to be fetched later, if you can't send without asking for some reason), without asking the user. If you want to be able to connect print screened screenshots with detailed error data, have it send a unique ID with the data that's also displayed in the corner of the popup.
What about offering them a "Print Screen" button that performs these actions as well as performing the print screen? If you're locked into this method of having your customers send error details, this may be an easier route to take.
Lifted from my comment below for easier reference (looks helpful, perhaps):
codeproject.com/KB/cs/PrintScreen.aspx
This is in theory...the best way to deal with it I would think
Intercept a WM_PRINT message or inject one into your process... see this article here
Install a system-wide keyboard hook and intercept the print-screen key and swap it around with your contents prior to the capture. Now, I can point you to several places for this, here on CodeProject, and here also, keyboard spy, and finally, global Mouse and keyboard hook on CodeProject.
Now, once you intercept the print screen, invoke the WM_PRINT message by capturing the contents that you want to capture.
I know this is brief and short, but I hope this should get you going.
The only solution i came up with was to offer big, large, easy to read toolbar buttons that give the user every opportunity to save the contents of the error dialog:
Save
Copy to clipboard
Send using e-mail
Print
And after all that, i use the Windows function SetWindowDisplayAffinity in order to show the user a black box where the form should be:
This function and GetWindowDisplayAffinity are designed to support the window content protection feature that is new to Windows 7. This feature enables applications to protect their own onscreen window content from being captured or copied through a specific set of public operating system features and APIs. However, it works only when the Desktop Window Manager(DWM) is composing the desktop.
It is important to note that unlike a security feature or an implementation of Digital Rights Management (DRM), there is no guarantee that using SetWindowDisplayAffinity and GetWindowDisplayAffinity, and other necessary functions such as DwmIsCompositionEnabled, will strictly protect windowed content, for example where someone takes a photograph of the screen.
If their screenshots show a big black box, hopefully they'll get the hint.
I did add a defeat, if they hold down shift while clicking "show error details", i don't add the protection during form construction:
//Code released into public domain. No attribution required.
if (!IsShiftKeyPressed())
SetWindowDisplayAffinity(this.Handle, WDA_MONITOR); //Please don't screenshot the form, please e-mail me the contents!
I have an e-commerce web application and I'd some how like to make that print to a label printer for the back end stuff
I have two questions
1) I can't print from a normal webpage straight to the printer (A zedbra LP2844 i think) it just throws out junk
2) I want to be able to print labels to the label printer, but all other printing, such as invoices would go to the default printer - a laser, so need someway of selecting the right printer
It will all happen at a fixed location, so I can insist on for example using Firefox with a specific (custom?) plugin installed (already using firefox so this would be a neat way)
Does anybody know if this is possible, is a firefox extention a possible and/or good way of doing this?
Anybody out there that can write ff plugins?
I would presume this must have been done before surely, but cannot find anything on google
Thanks for any help
Dave
Surely the label printer comes with a Windows driver? Then it might be enough to produce pages with the right dimensions in the browser using CSS or, if that won't work out, a PDF.
You can use "cm" or "in" units in your CSS for the label printer; you should be able to set page dimensions and orientation in Firefox's print dialog .
As much as I can see there are Windows drivers for this particular printer. Printing shouldn't be a problem after you install them.
Thanks for your comments people, I've actually come up with a different solution which comes at the problem from a different angle as selecting the correct printer would likely always be an issue
At the moment we have a windows program that we enter the order number into, it then draws a label and prints it out, but its not pretty and getting changes done to the layout is difficult but more than anything I want the ability to print from the webpage
So what I'm planning is this -
Update the program so it sits in the background and polls the database for a list of orders to be printed, for each order it finds, request an image from the server and print that image to the label
On the server, an image is created on the fly using ASPJpeg which gives me full control over how the label looks
From the webapp, I then have a button on the order to print, this adds the order to a print table... I can then have an interface to the print table which shows whats waiting to print, whats been printed etc, and I can clear the print queue or delete individual items from it just as if it were the windows print queue
Only problem I'm worried about is polling often enough that staff aren't waiting for labels to print and not polling too often that too much bandwidth is being used up
I might make it so that when they hit despatch it sends the label to be printed, or some other existing function that ties into the order process