I want to be able to access an application and be able to access the buttons on the forms. I have looked into user32.dll and spy++ but what I found is that this method can only access winform windows. I want to be able to access by clicking on their buttons and getting their text. Is there a simple way of doing this or are programs these programs programmatically inaccessible?
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I have a simple login screen windows form application and I am controlling that application through an adapter now i want to find the coordinates of the textboxes and button, I tried using the coordinates after right clicking the textbox control and picking the location from its property but it did not work. So i want to find the proper location, as windows form application form size can be changed during the run-time. So, how can i find the windows form coordinates.
I have tried using the coordinates provided in the properties of the textbox and button controls but those did not work.
IntPtr childHwnd = Win32API.FindWindowByPosition(ptr, new Point(intFirstNameCoordX,intFirstNameCoordY));
This is how i want to find the window.
I want to find the textbox and buttons position in windows form. I was googling and found some Spy++ tool but i am not sure if that is what i require and if it is then can anyone please guide me how i can use it to find the position in a simple window form application.
OK, I can see that you are using WinApi functions, so I won't go deeper into that, just give you some idea.
First, you can get the main window handle. You can get the handle by process (enum process windows) or by it's caption. If you want to get the handle by caption you can use FindWindow
This handle is the window handle. Next, you can enum it's child windows - for example panels or other controls, using EnumChildWindows
Now the rest depends on your GUI architecture. You may have edits and buttons in panels, so you will have to search for child windows of that panel. You may have controls just put on your main window - so you just search for child controls of that window.
Next, when you find the control, you're interested in, you can get more info, using for example GetWindowRect
I am working on automation to Windows 10 with C#.
One of the tasks is to write data to a TextBox in window called "Add exclusion".
In order to enter this window:
Open Settings => Update & security => Windows Defender => Add an exclution => Exclude a file extension
I understood that I need to use SendMessage(...) or SetWindowText(...) functions for writing data to a control.
But I need to pass these functions a handle of the control I want to write to.
So I need to use GetDlgItem(hDlg, nIDDlgItem).
The parameter nIDDlgItem is the control ID but I am not able to find the control ID of the TextBox control in the "Add exclusion" window.
I used Spy++ but when I put the target icon I received only "Shell_Dialog" class:
I have only the window handle:
I need the handle of the TextBox control.
EDIT (20.6.2016):
I tried to use the Inspect.exe tool from Windows 10 Kit but when I am placing the curoser on the TextBox control it writes me "Access is denied":
References:
SetText of textbox in external app. Win32 API
Inspect (Inspect.exe) is a Windows-based tool that enables you select any UI element
Third alternative is to select parent (ie. dialog window) for your button (ie. it will be of Dialog class), and register for WM_COMMAND messages from it. Then after pressing it you button ID will be displayed as wID: XX in message window.
Source: Using visual studio's spy++ tool:
In order to be able to do it I needed to use the Inspect.exe tool with administrator permissions.
Thanks #NineBerry,
After I opened the Inspect.exe as administrator I could see all the details.
I want to be able to find out the tab order of any UI in 3rd party applications. Let's say in my application I have a window handle of a UI of some other application running on my system. I want to know the tab order of that UI in that application.
Example:
I am running Skype on my system. Let's say I have the window handle of the Call button available on Skype interface, and now I want to know what is the tab order of that button.
I am developing my application in C#. Is there any way to programmatically get this sequence number.
If you do EnumChildWindows for a particular container window you should get the controls returned in tab order.
How can i get the control (and possibly its text value) of a control which was clicked in another third party application (its not a .net or wpf application for which there are answers which did not solve my problem)
I can get the click event in my app (using the global hooks as mentioned here) i want the control/handle of that particular UI Element
Example : I have opened Notepad and when i click on File Menu, i want the control of that File button.
Look at the documentation for SetWindowsHookEx using the WH_CALLWNDPROC param. This will let you intercept messages in Notepad window procedure. You'll need to figure out which messages get generated from clicking the menu items in Notepad, you can use Spy++ for that. But there is no real control for the File button, it is part of a menu.
I am unable to figure out why I can use Spy++ to get handle, window class etc of some windows application. For example, iexplore.exe, it just doesn't work on url text box or any text, edit box area if any in the page loaded; there are also windows application I get only the outer layer's properties whereas its internal buttons, textbox or combox are inaccessible. In these applications what should I do to reach them ? Thank you :)
These programs use windowless controls.
Instead of using standard Windows controls, they draw and process everything themselves within one giant container.