Controlling another Window... Possible?

I am making a frontend application for an older windows application. Is is possible to get the handles of the menus somehow with the Windows API so that I can control some of the menu actions?

So if I clicked on a command button in my frontend, then it would click the "Preferences..." selection in the other windows application.

Please let me know if this is possible, and if it is, then how would I do this...

Thank you,

Simon Bingier

To get the menu items:

Code:

---

'Code by Aaron Young

Private Declare Function GetMenu Lib "user32" (ByVal hWnd As Long) As Long
Public Declare Function FindWindowEx Lib "user32" Alias "FindWindowExA" (ByVal hWnd1 As Long, ByVal hWnd2 As Long, ByVal lpsz1 As String, ByVal lpsz2 As String) As Long
Private Declare Function GetSubMenu Lib "user32" (ByVal hMenu As Long, ByVal nPos As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function GetMenuItemCount Lib "user32" (ByVal hMenu As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function GetMenuString Lib "user32" Alias "GetMenuStringA" (ByVal hMenu As Long, ByVal wIDItem As Long, ByVal lpString As String, ByVal nMaxCount As Long, ByVal wFlag As Long) As Long

Private Const MF_BYPOSITION = &H400&

Public Sub ListMenuStructure(ByVal hWnd As Long, ByRef oList As ListBox)
    Dim lMenu As Long
    lMenu = GetMenu(hWnd)
    oList.Clear
    If lMenu Then RecurseMenu lMenu, oList, 1
End Sub

Private Sub RecurseMenu(ByVal lMenu As Long, ByRef oList As ListBox, ByVal iLevel As Long)
    Dim lItems As Long
    Dim lItem As Long
    Dim sCaption As String
    lItems = GetMenuItemCount(lMenu)
    If lItems Then
        For lItem = 0 To lItems - 1
            sCaption = Space(255)
            sCaption = Left(sCaption, GetMenuString(lMenu, lItem, ByVal sCaption, 255, MF_BYPOSITION))
            oList.AddItem String((iLevel - 1) * 2, "-") & sCaption
            If GetSubMenu(lMenu, lItem) Then
                RecurseMenu GetSubMenu(lMenu, lItem), oList, iLevel + 1
            End If
        Next
    End If
End Sub

Private Sub Command1_Click()
ListMenuStructure FindWindowEx(0, 0, "NotePad", vbNullString), List1
End Sub

---

Thx

It worked on getting the names of all of the menus/submenus but how would I use this to actually click onto that menu? This the last piece of the puzzle :\

-Simon Bingier

Does anyone know?

I'm @ work or I'd look through all my code and find the exact example but you can use RunMenu or something simular if I remember right. Try searching for AOL VB or AOL *.bas thats where ilearned it originally

This thread now moved to the API section:

http://forums.vb-world.net/showthrea...threadid=29986


-Simon Bingier