AutoHotkey Community

In complex GUI's it is hard to keep track of the ClassNN identifiers of controls: you have to count how many edit controls were created before, to know that the newly created one is, e.g. Edit3. This ClassNN is needed if you want to send keystrokes, like ^{End} to the corresponding control, to move the insertion point to the end. It was much easier if we could use the name of the associated variable of the GUI control, as Toralf suggested. Here is a simple trick to do it.

Only GuiControl/Get can use variable names to identify controls, therefore we need a way around: set the keyboard focus with "GuiControl Focus, VarName" to the desired control, and get the ClassNN value with "ControlGetFocus ClassNN". You only need to do this once after the GUI was created, the retrieved ClassNN values can be used later to identify the target control to receive keystrokes:

I prefer using GuiControlGet instead
Here's your modified example:

Why? If you want less characters, you can use "ControlGetFocus ClassLog, A". Was GuiControlGet faster or more reliable?

Hi Laszlo,

Both the commands are equally fast & reliable. If you really are concerned about a few characters, GuiControlGet has the advantage when your LastFound window is something else..

I modified your example just to show that another command does the same job. I’m sorry... didn’t mean to offend you.

You did not. I was just curious if one of the 2 commands is better.

@Chris:
Would it be possible to get a new sub-command "class" for GuiControlGet
"GuiControlGet, OutputVar , Class, ControlID"
Where for the subcommand Class the OutputVar is set to the class of the Control.

And maybe a HWND sub-command as well?

Thanks for listening.

_________________
Ciao
toralf

There is a plan to improve SendMessage/PostMessage and some of the control-targeting commands so that it's easier to work with GUI windows and their controls (perhaps by allowing control variable names in place of ClassNN).

As for HWND, here's a way to get control HWNDs that might be easier:
In the above, the red 3 signifies the first control in the window. To get the second control, use 4; and for the third, use 5; and so on. The numbers of the controls are the order in which they were originally added.