My Windows API Library - New version available for download

[chris128]

The first release of this library is now available for download See the first post in this thread or my signature for a link and anyone that uses it please let me know if you have any feedback (good or bad!)

Thanks

[formlesstree4]

Downloaded, will take a look at.

[chris128]

cheers let me know if you find any problems

[sapator]

Hey.Done a little reverse engineering on the dll (hope you forgive me that ) and i can say it's very well structured.Although i don't have vs so i can't use it or any need at the moment for the specific API's but your "networking" i think will help a lot of people.
I have an out of topic question though.Did you use the xml file to store the comments?Can this be done?I was only away of using the 3 " ' " or system.componentmodel .
Errr so any links on that...err of topic?

[formlesstree4]

That is what that is sapator. The XML file is generated by VS.

[sapator]

Manually or automatic?

[formlesstree4]

Unless you mess with settings, typically automatic.

[sapator]

Hm.
Funny i've never gave notice....
Anyway don't wanna spam with irrelevant things.Thanks.

[chris128]

Hey.Done a little reverse engineering on the dll (hope you forgive me that ) and i can say it's very well structured.

Thanks and no worries, anyone who wants the source code just send me a PM/email.

I have an out of topic question though.Did you use the xml file to store the comments?Can this be done?I was only away of using the 3 " ' " or system.componentmodel .
Errr so any links on that...err of topic?

All I did was the 3 " ' " like you mentioned above each method and it creates the comment fields like "<summary>" etc and it stores them in the XML file automatically. The XML file is in your Bin\Release folder when you build the solution and as long as that file is in the same folder as the DLL then you will see the comments in intellisense when you use methods from that DLL.
Oh but any normal comments (ie not ones in a <summary> or <param> tag etc) will not be included in the XML file.

[sapator]

Thanks.As i said i never did notice that.Probably cuz i usually pack everything.

[chris128]

Added some new stuff to this today so will be releasing a new version soon I plan on releasing updated versions quite often rather than waiting until I've got loads of new stuff.

The main addition in this version will be some power management methods, which will be in a new class named NativePowerScheme. There will be plenty of other new stuff as well though - I've listed all of the items I'm planning to add to it below (some of which I've already got finished and others are still a work in progress). Oh and the first 2 methods in this list are ones that were intended to go into the last version but I had some issues that meant that didn't happen... got them working properly now though.

NativeNetwork.ReleaseIPAddresses
Releases all v4 IP addresses that were acquired via DHCP

NativeNetwork.RenewIPAddresses
Renews all v4 IP addresses that were acquired via DHCP

NativePowerScheme.GetAvailablePowerSchemes
Gets a list of all power schemes, with basic information such as the name, description and index

NativePowerScheme.GetActivePowerScheme
Gets the currently active power scheme

NativePowerScheme.SetActivePowerScheme
Sets which power scheme is active

NativeOperatingSystem.RenameComputer
Renames the local computer to the specified new name. If the computer is part of a domain then the domain account for the computer is renamed as well

NativeOperatingSystem.DeleteUserProfile
Deletes a user's profile and all user related settings

NativeOperatingSystem.UserProfilesDirectory (property)
Returns the root directory path where all user profiles are stored (I dont think there is an environmental variable for this but if anyone knows of one then let me know and I wont bother including this)

NativeFileSystem.EmptyRecycleBin
Empties the recycle bin

NativeFileSystem.GetRecycleBinItemCount
Returns the number of deleted items in the recycle bin and the total size of the recycle bin

NativeWindow.GetWindowFromTitle
Finds a window that has the specified title and creates a NativeWindow instance from it (which includes the title, handle, owning process and window icon)

NativeWindow.GetWindowFromPartialTitle
Returns a list of all windows that have a title that contains the specified string - useful if you dont know the entire title of the window

NativeWindow.MakeTopMost
Makes the specified window a "topmost" window so that it always appears on top of all other windows

NativeWindow.GetActiveWindow
Gets the window that currently has focus and creates a NativeWindow instance from it (so includes window title, owning process, handle etc)


As always, if anyone has any suggestions for any particular methods they want to see in this next version then let me know

[formlesstree4]

Good list of addons chris, can't wait for the next version.

[Arve K.]

Hi Chris,

First of all, let me just say that this is a fantastic piece of work . I am using your API pack to get icons from .exe- and .dll-files, and it works like a charm

However, I am creating a taskbar sort-of-thingy, which consists of two forms -- frmMain and frmBar. The thing is that when mouse position.X equals My.Computer.Screen.WorkingArea.Width, frmBar moves in front of the other windows using Me.BringToFront() and Me.Activate(). This works great when I run the app under the IDE (VS2010), but when VS is not running, the form is always flashing a bit (according to MSDN this is because my application is not the active application). So I was trying to use your method .NativeWindow.StopFlashWindow to make it stop flash right after Me.Activate, but I can't figure out how to do it...
So I was thinking maybe you (or someother) can give me an example on how to use it??

Edit:
Problem solved

Cjwdev.WindowsApi.NativeWindow.StopFlashWindow(Me.Handle) 'duh

Arve

[Arve K.]

Btw, this (post 2) is the code I am using to get the mouse positions outside the form. Maybe this is something you could add to your API pack?

[chris128]

Hi Chris,

First of all, let me just say that this is a fantastic piece of work . I am using your API pack to get icons from .exe- and .dll-files, and it works like a charm

...

Edit:
Problem solved

Cjwdev.WindowsApi.NativeWindow.StopFlashWindow(Me.Handle) 'duh

Arve

hey really glad it has helped you and yeah I see you figured out how to use the StopFlashWindow method.

[chris128]

For anyone interested, the new version (along with a list of all the new methods) is now available here: http://cjwdev.wordpress.com/2010/07/...2-1-available/

[cjconstantine]

Cjwdev.WindowsApi.NativeNetwork.ReleaseIpAddresses()

Keeps throwing this error:

A first chance exception of type 'System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception' occurred 
in Cjwdev.WindowsApi.dll

An attempt was made to reference a token that does not exist

Any ideas? I'm definitely using DHCP.

[chris128]

Thanks for letting me know - I tested it on my windows 7 machine as an admin and also as a standard user and it worked without an issue. However I just tried it on an XP machine I found that it worked as an admin but as a standard user I got the same error you mentioned. I had made a stupid mistake in the exception handling but I've fixed that now and uploaded the new version so it should now report the correct error (Access is denied - which you get because non admin users in XP cannot release IP addresses). I've uploaded the updated DLL so can you give that one a go and confirm that it gives you the correct error message now? Of course if you are not running this on XP or are running it on XP but as an admin then let me know as it's obviously a different issue that you are seeing. Download link for the new version is the same as before - http://www.cjwdev.co.uk/DeveloperCom...WindowsApi.zip

Thanks
Chris

[cjconstantine]

Different error this time:

A first chance exception of type 'System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception' occurred 
in Cjwdev.WindowsApi.dll

The system cannot find the file specified

I am running on WinXP Pro SP3 and my ID has local admin rights. I removed and re-added the dll in the references tab. Still no go. But this code works fine:

NativeOperatingSystem.Is64BitOperatingSystem

[chris128]

Different error this time:

A first chance exception of type 'System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception' occurred 
in Cjwdev.WindowsApi.dll

The system cannot find the file specified

Ah I think I encountered that one when I was writing one of the other network card related methods. It was a while ago but I think in my case it was due to a virtual network card that some VPN software had installed - once I uninstalled the VPN software the error stopped being thrown so I assumed it was just a problem that that particular installation of the VPN software. Do you know if you have any virtual network cards on your PC?

[cjconstantine]

Yeah, I have two VMWare virtual network adapters. And a large number of the PCs I'll be working with have VPN software ... I'll just have to use "ipconfig /release *"

Great work on the API collection! AutoIt had a nice collection of service functions, if you were looking for ideas on functions to add to your API: http://www.autoitscript.com/forum/in...howtopic=80201