AutoHotkey Community

[Kellianjaxon]

I'm pretty sure what I'm going to ask can't be easily carried out but I just need someone experienced to tell me to stop dreaming about it

I have a 3rd party application window with a special slider control, the classname of which can be retrieved. A part of the slider control is a small area that shows numeric value indicating the current position of the slider. That value is what I'd want to monitor.

By following the Message Tutorial I found the right place to look for. Winspector Spy shows three different parameters and their values for WM_COMMAND:

Code: X
Control ID: Y
Control HWND: 0xZZZZZZZZ

The correct value is right there in the field 'Code:' . Control ID seems to be constantly zero.

Unfortunately I have absolutely no idea about how to get the value. Can this be done with AHK using advanced methods, maybe dllcalls?

[dncarac]

You can intercept the WM_COMMAND message associated with a control within your own AHK program with OnMessage. OnMessage associates a function with a message. The function can have up to four parameters, which include parameters associated with the message. When a message is received, that function is called with the parameters filled in by Windows. The function can test the value of those parameters and perform appropriately. I've used it to detect when an edit box loses focus. I wrote this post on it: http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28520&

If you can get it to work with messages associated with outside programs, some of the parameters of the function contain the information you want. I did research on the Microsoft MSDN site and this site has numeric values for the codes: http://manoftoday.wordpress.com/2006/10/23/windows-msg-code-ref-for-autohotkey/

On the other hand, if you have the windows handle for the control, can't you use ControlGet or ControlGetText or one of those to get the value?

DNC

[Kellianjaxon]

[dncarac]

Bummer. If you do find out how to do this, would you please post it?

DNC

[Kellianjaxon]

[Kellianjaxon]

There was lots of information on the subject on MSDN website. After careful examination, I believe you'd need to set up a hook to monitor system message traffic.

Unfortunately, the only way for the hook to work with threads other than those owned by the calling application, is to have the hook in an external dll file. Even if the dll wouldn't need to be complex to accomplish sole WM_COMMAND message monitoring, building one seems to be way beyond abilities for someone like me who's barely touched C / C++ / whatever AHK would be compatible with.

I don't even know if the dll could be built without appropriate commercial software, any of which I don't happen to possess.

[dncarac]

Interesting. I have a copy of the Microsoft C# visual studio, but haven't had a project worth investing the time to learn it. On the other hand, one of the things I know can be done with is is writing a DLL. It's huge but free. Maybe C# is the way to go.

DNC

[Kellianjaxon]

[dncarac]

I did a little surfing this morning. I reviewed the thread about managed code. Then I went out to look for a free C/C++ IDE/compiler. I found one called Dev-C++. I downloaded it, and created a new project from their DLL template. I named it HelloWorld and without making any changes, I compiled it into a DLL (13.6k ??!!). I then wrote a two line AHK program to call it and it worked like a champ. If you don't count the time I took to surf around looking for free C/C++ IDEs and looking over suggestions and reviews, the total time was under 15 minutes.

[Kellianjaxon]

After trying a few things out and searching for information I got to say that learning a fair amount of a new language in order to achieve - in my case - a minor additional feature doesn't pay off enough to motivate going through all the hassle.

I may get back to this issue later if I happen to come across an easily-understandable C/C++ tutorial that covers everything I need to know to build a hooking DLL. Until then, case closed for me.