How do I send a message to a window handle using AutoHotKey? - autohotkey

I'm trying to detect if ffdshow is currently running on the computer using AutoHotKey.
Someone has suggested that I can achieve this by sending a message to the to the ffdshow window handle. If it succeeds, then ffdshow is running.
According to ffdshow, the window handle is 32786 and, according to the AutoHotKey documentation, I want to use PostMessage and then check ErrorLevel.
However at that point, I'm struggling to understand the documentation. I've got the following:
ControlHwnd := 32786
VarContainingID := 32786
PostMessage, 0x00, , , ,ahk_id %ControlHwnd%, ahk_id %VarContainingID%
MsgBox %ErrorLevel%
but that always reports a 1 indicating that it was unable to connect to the window handle - even though ffdshow is running.
I've also tried changing PostMessage to the blocking SendMessage but that always reports FAIL.
I'm clearly doing something wrong, but I'm not really sure what. Can anyone help?

Thanks to blackholyman and MCL, I found the problem.
After digging around in the sample code found here, it turns out there is a window class for ffdshow called ffdshow_remote_class.
As a result, the following code:
DetectHiddenWindows, On
WinGet, activeid, ID, ahk_class ffdshow_remote_class
MsgBox activeid = %activeid%
will return a hWnd value for ffdshow (stored in activeid) if it is running or nothing if it is not.

Related

How to make transparent Form get mouse enter events?

I want to create a Delphi application that does something interesting when the user moves his mouse over the top-left corner of the screen. I thought about it and plan to do it with the following strategy:
Create a very small 3x3 Form and make it transparent and always on top. Also make it with no title bar or border.
Define mouse enter event for the Form.
I use the following code for step 1:
procedure TopLeftForm.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
begin
FormStyle := fsStayOnTop;
self.TransparentColor := true;
self.TransparentColorValue := self.Color;
self.BorderStyle := bsNone;
end;
The problem is that I found that when the Form is transparent, it can't capture mouse enter events. I could make the Form not transparent in order to get mouse enter events, but that way users can see the Form at the top-left screen corner, which is not what I want.
What's your suggestions to my problem?
What you want is a 'Hook' that can give you information about mouse events without the events being intended for your program. It's too big a topic to be able to give you a how-to in one go, but these two links should be helpful:
Understanding how to use Windows Hooks
Mouse Hook Tutorial with Delphi codes
Why use a Windows Hook?
The Windows environment is designed around messages being passed around. Typically, a program is only interested in messages that are sent directly to its own windows. Trying to make sure that your application has a window that will get the messages blocks other applications from receiving those messages when they are in the same location under yours, and if another window is over yours then you won't get the messages. If you want to know about activity that's happening that wouldn't normally be sent to you - for example, a mouse click outside of your application's window. To enable applications to have visibility of events that are not destined for itself, a windows hook can be used.
There are different types of hooks, depending on what you want to access. A mouse hook is appropriate for what you have specified here. The system maintains a 'Hook Chain' for all of the hooks that have been installed - it will be your responsibility to pass the messages on down the chain, and to uninstall yourself from the chain.
To access the messages, your hook function will look something like this (code taken from the 2nd link above and adapted):
function MouseHookHandler(ACode: Integer; WParam: WParam; LParam: LParam): LResult; stdcall;
var
vMouseInfo: PMouseHookStruct;
begin
if ACode < 0 then
Result := CallNextHookEx(Data^.MouseHook, ACode, WParam, LParam)
else
begin
vMouseInfo := PMouseHookStruct(Pointer(LParam));
PostMessage(Data^.AppHandle, WM_CUSTOM_MOUSE, vMouseInfo^.pt.X, vMouseInfo^.pt.Y);
// we dont want to block the mouse messages
Result := CallNextHookEx(nil, ACode, WParam, LParam);
end;
end;
In your hook function:
ACode is dependent on the type of hook and indicates the event
wParam and lParam have a meaning specific to the event
To pass the message on, you should call CallNextHookEx - however for some hooks, the message will always be passed on regardless.
Hooks can be installed as Global hooks - meaning they intercept messages on all threads running in the same Desktop / WinStation as the calling thread. So, if you have multiple users connected via RD, for example, the hook is specific to one of those desktops only.

gtk_window_is_active() not working as expected

I call gtk_window_is_active(wnd) and always receive 0, even when I know for sure that wnd is active and receiving keyboard input. What is the cause and where is the remedy for this?
In fact, I run gtk_window_list_toplevels() and iterate over the list - and gtk_window_is_active() returns 0 for each of them!
When you create a GtkWindow it is still in the 'unrealized' state. You have to call show() on it and let the main loop run, then the window gets realized. So if you call gtk_window_is_active after creating the windows, but before the main loop has chances to run, you will get false.
Thanks to Emmanuele Bassi, Gnome Foundation staff, I figured it out: the problem is that my focus-in-event handler returned 1 (TRUE), and thus prevented the default GTK behaviour. It turned out (something not obvious) that keeping track of the active window is part of that default behavior that i unknowingly overrode.
So, I changed focus-in-event handler of my windows to return FALSE (0), and ever since gtk_window_is_active() works like a clock.
I came to realize an unhelpful (to my task) detail: gtk_window_is_active() only works AFTER all focus-in-event handlers have completed working. Well, I have a mouse click handler that activates some other window, and then needs to check if a certain window is active (these things belong to different objects and different modules, yet are executed within one click hadler invocation). In my case gtk_window_is_active() is useless: it returs FALSE for the active window until after my click handler has finished and the focus-in-handlers (mine and the default) have finished, too.

How to run AutoHotKey scripts on several PCs at once, controlled from one place?

For some load testing simulations, I'm looking at scripting with AHK 1.1. The issue is we have a client-server setup with multiple workstations so I'd really like to be able to trigger the same script (or even variations) to run on multiple PCs at once, to accurately simulate multiple users all hammering the system.
Even more useful would be to make sure the same test happens at exactly (within some tolerance) the same time, to check this doesn't cause problems.
What be would the best way to do this? Do it from within AHK itself, or use some separate remote-control tool to let me fire off scripts on PCs of my choosing?
With ahk you will need scripts acting as server and clients so both needs to be running no matter the method used...
As to the TCP/IP you can do this, you just need to find out if you have any usable/open posts your scripts can use...
I just helped an australian guy the other day setup a great working lot of server/client scripts
using the Socket Class by Bentschi looking something like this
Server:
;Server
#include Socket.ahk
myTcp := new SocketTCP()
myTcp.bind("addr_any", 54321)
myTcp.listen()
myTcp.onAccept := Func("OnTCPAccept")
return
OnTCPAccept(this)
{
newTcp := this.accept()
newTcp.onRecv := func("OnTCPRecv")
newTcp.sendText("Connected")
}
OnTCPRecv(this)
{
msgbox % this.recvText()
}
Client:
;Client
#include Socket.ahk
myTcp := new SocketTCP()
myTcp.connect("your servers A_IPAddress1", 54321) ; lokal
myTcp.onRecv := Func("OnTcpRecv")
return
OnTcpRecv(this)
{
ToolTip % this.RecvText()
}
But to use and or set something like this up you may need to know what ports are usable on the network or have the ability to change settings as needed.
The speed of the TCP/IP scripts are in the low milliseconds (under 20 on my network) so no real tolerance to speak of.
Hope it helps
As wrote Sidola you can check shared folder for some file or folder. You can use
IfExist command for it. Here is example:
Loop
{
IfExist, c:\a.txt
{
break
}
}
;code to execute if c:\a.txt exists comes below.
MsgBox, 1
Also you can add Sleep command to put less stress on hdd like for example in code below:
Loop
{
IfExist, c:\a.txt
{
break
}
Sleep, 1000
}
;code to execute if c:\a.txt exists comes below.
MsgBox, 1
Also, always use AutoHotkey and its documenatation from http://ahkscript.org/ (current uptodate version, new official website)! AutoHotkey and its documentation from autohotkey.com is outdated and you may have some problems using them!
I can't provide actual code, but there is a way to kind of inject a service into your LAN machines through the Admin$ share and remotely control it. This way AHK wouldn't need to run on the LAN computers all the time.
I don't know how exactly this could be done, but PsShutdown does it to hibernate LAN PCs which is normally impossible.
In case you actually manage to do it, it would be great if you could share it.

Alternative of ControlSend() function of AutoIT in Perl

ControlSend() works in a similar way to Send() but it can send key strokes directly to a window/control, rather than just to the active window. It takes the window/control hwnd as a parameter with keystrokes.
I have used
SendMessage($_,WM_KEYDOWN, VK_RETURN, 0);
SendMessage($_,WM_KEYUP, VK_RETURN, 0);
and
SendMessage($Ctrls5,WM_CHAR, VK_RETURN, 0);
I have also used SendKeys("{ENTER}"); but it wants the window to be present in foreground.
Help me in solving this.
If you are sending the Enter key for carriage return in text box then you have no function for that.
But if you want to send enter key on a button or any other control(to click on it) then you can do so by the function
PushChildById(Parent_HWND ,ctrl_Hwnd);
PushChildButton(Parent_HWND , Ctrl_regex);

(AHK) Confirm before loading a program.

Curious as to how to make a popup asking to confirm if I want to load the program before it loads. Example:
^g::Run C:\GW2\gw2.exe
Although it does not seem that you have done a lot of homework, I'll provide a solution here.
^g::
MsgBox, 4100, , Would you like to launch GW2?, 5 ; 5-second timeout.
IfMsgBox, No
Return ; User pressed the "No" button.
IfMsgBox, Timeout
Return ; Timed out.
run, C:\GW2\gw2.exe
Return