Click control to get Handle (Winspector style)

[ripps]

Hi guys

Id like to be able to click a button on an external window and a text box on my vb6 program be populated with that buttons handle, similar to the winspector drag and drop process.

Im wondering if this is possible in VB6.

Mods - Please move if this should be in the VB6 forum.

Thanks

[jmsrickland]

No. Clicking on a button of another application (un-related to your VB project) has no effect on your VB6 program. If, however, you have control of that other window (i.e. the source code) then you can get the button's handle by having that app send your VB program the button's handle. If you do not have any control then to get the handle of that button you will need to first get the handle of the other window by calling FindWindow API with the title bar name. Once you have the window handle you will need to set up a enumeration function in your program that loops through all the sub windows until it finds the button you need and then get the handle from there. This is complex code and I am not going to write the code to do that now as I don't have the time but I suggest you check into this by searching for how to get the handle of another window on the net (Google will have hits).

[Edgemeal]

Hi guys

Id like to be able to click a button on an external window and a text box on my vb6 program be populated with that buttons handle, similar to the winspector drag and drop process.

Im wondering if this is possible in VB6.

You'll need to use a few API calls. Add a vb timer to your form. In the timer use WindowFromPoint to get the handle of the control under the mouse cursor, use GetAsyncKeyState to check if the mouse button was clicked (I'd use a right or middle mouse click so you don't fire the apps button), when mouse click is detected stop the timer and set your text box to the value returned from WindowFromPoint.

[jmsrickland]

How's he going to know the X and Y for the WindowFromPoint (X, Y) function?

[Edgemeal]

How's he going to know the X and Y for the WindowFromPoint (X, Y) function?

GetCursorPos , I thought that would be obvious! .

[jmsrickland]

Obvious to whom?

[jmsrickland]

OK, taking what Edgemeal said here is the code that works

Set your timer to Interval = 100

Private Type POINTAPI
  x As Long
  y As Long
End Type

Private MyPointAPI As POINTAPI

Private Declare Function GetAsyncKeyState Lib "user32" (ByVal vKey As Long) As Integer
Private Declare Function WindowFromPoint Lib "user32" (ByVal xPoint As Long, ByVal yPoint As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function GetCursorPos Lib "user32" (lpPoint As POINTAPI) As Long

Private Const VK_RBUTTON = &H2

Private ButtonhWnd As Long

Private Sub Timer1_Timer()
 If GetAsyncKeyState(VK_RBUTTON) Then
   GetCursorPos MyPointAPI
   ButtonhWnd = WindowFromPoint(ByVal MyPointAPI.x, ByVal MyPointAPI.y)
   Text1.Text = ButtonhWnd
   Timer1.Enabled = False
 End If
End Sub