Adding a menu in another program

Hello everyone.

In a java game (Minecraft) I want to add a server menu containing chat admin server commands. I already worked out everything required to send the keys (sendmessage WM_KEYDOWN) and to simulate mouse clicks. The only problem I have is a nice gui.

I already tried a topmost transparant window, but it has one large problem: focus change causes the background game window to lose focus, and thus open the game menu. I somewhat fixed this by sending focus/activate messages to the game window, but this causes the game to go fullscreen on 64 bit machines. (for some reason)

Then I thought of painting my controls ontop of the window, but I would still have to handle mouse movement which is not (easily) possible at that point. Is there any way to add a control to another window (with the coding) or set up some sort of Window hook to handle the events?

The final goal is a simple overlay which is clickable as if it is part of the game.
I do not have to read any information from the parent window, only have to add a Windows Forms control to it. Since java is different from .NET I doubt adding the control is even possible...

I know window hooking is a sensitive subject at these forums, if what I want to do is not allowed using hooking then hooking is not an option, and all I would have to know then is how to add my own control as child to another (window) handle.

I am not sure but have you searched if you can use the APIs GetMenu and InsertMenuItem?

A veeeeeeery old unresolved (:() thread of mine: http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=376337
See my code in the 1st post. It will show you how to add menu item to external program using Moeur's HookControl OCX.

Thanks I'll look into it.

Not sure about changing the items' colour; you'd need the header declaration and API's for the context menu then. May be this link can *somewhat* help you with that...too complicated for em though...
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb776881%28v=VS.85%29.aspx

EDIT

Wow can't believe it actually worked. This test code simply did what I wanted...

Code:

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Public Class Form1

    Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
        Dim w As New Window("Minecraft")
        w = w.Children.Last
        With HookControl
            .AddMessage(API.WM.msg.LBUTTONDOWN, "WM_LBUTTONDOWN")
            .TargethWnd = w.Handle
            MsgBox("Success: " & .SetHook)
        End With
    End Sub

    Private Sub Button2_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button2.Click
        MsgBox("Removed all hooks: " & HookControl.RemoveAllHooks)
    End Sub

    Private Sub HookControl_PostedMessage(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As AxHookCtrl.__HookControl_PostedMessageEvent) Handles HookControl.PostedMessage
        Dim Msg
        'display the messages as they arrive
        For Each Msg In HookControl.Messages
            If e.uMsg = Msg.Value Then
                Debug.Print("Posted: " & Msg.Label & "  " & e.wParam)
                Exit For
            End If
        Next
    End Sub
End Class

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Nicely posts when the left mouse button is clicked. I do wonder: any chance this 'API' will fail on a 64 bit system?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bergerkiller

Thanks I'll look into it.

Not sure about changing the items' colour; you'd need the header declaration and API's for the context menu then. May be this link can *somewhat* help you with that...too complicated for em though...
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb776881%28v=VS.85%29.aspx

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Thanks for the link. But it is for shell extension context menus. Not exactly what I was looking for.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bergerkiller

Nicely posts when the left mouse button is clicked. I do wonder: any chance this 'API' will fail on a 64 bit system?

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I have no idea. If it failes, try "x86" setting instead of "Any Cpu".

Edit: Sorry. I forgot it is in VB6 forum. :p I have no idea if this will work with x64.

Afraid it did not work on 64 bit systems. It failed to bind the DLL and OCX DirectX control to the program, giving a crash report on startup. Since I can't compile older c++ projects, and I don't know how to compile to 64 bit on a 32 bit system, I can't get to a 64 bit DLL...

That is what my problem was with these types of DLL's...they don't work on both platforms. I'll see if I can add a VB .NET menu control...