Active Window

[ChrisiMan]

HI!
How do i get the name and the coordinates of the current active window, not created by my program?

THX

[Vlatko]

Private Declare Function GetActiveWindow Lib "user32" () As Long

Dim h as Long
h = GetActiveWindow

For the name

Private Declare Function GetWindowText Lib "user32" Alias "GetWindowTextA" (ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal lpString As String, ByVal cch As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function SetWindowText Lib "user32" Alias "SetWindowTextA" (ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal lpString As String) As Long
Private Sub Form_Activate()
Dim MyStr As String
    'Create a buffer
    MyStr = String(100, Chr$(0))
    'Get the windowtext
    GetWindowText Me.hwnd, MyStr, 100
    'strip the rest of buffer
    MyStr = Left$(MyStr, InStr(MyStr, Chr$(0)) - 1)
    'Triple the window's text
    MyStr = MyStr + MyStr + MyStr
    'Set the new window text
    SetWindowText Me.hwnd, MyStr
End Sub

[ChrisiMan]

THX Vlatko
Could you tell me maybe how to get the coordinates of the Window too????

[Vlatko]

Private Type RECT
    Left As Long
    Top As Long
    Right As Long
    Bottom As Long
End Type

Private Declare Function GetWindowRect Lib "user32" (ByVal hwnd As Long, lpRect As RECT) As Long

Dim r as Rect
GetWindowRect h,r
'r.left = x pos
'r.top = y pos 
'etc.

Some explaination to that:

Dim rc As RECT
GetWindowRect hWnd_of_Window, rc

To get the hWnd of a Window, use FindWindowEx.

Private 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 Sub Command1_Click
    'This will get the hWnd of calculator
    hWnd = FindWindowEx(0, 0, "SciCalc", "Calculator")
End Sub

[DarkJedi9]

SciCalc is the class name right? And don't you only need one of those arguments? I thought that if you had either one it would work.

Well...yes...and no.

If we omit the class name as just use the WindowName, Windows will search for a window of any class with the name of Calculator. If we specify SciCalc, then it will only search within that class.

But on the other hand, if we omit the window name and just use the class name, we will still be able to find the window, because every SciCalc window has the name of Calculator (unless it's programatically changed).

So in a sense, either way is right, but I usually try to be as specific as possible.