How can I read selected text in another application, by vb program?
in [VB.NET]
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From: mayayana on 1 Nov 2009 10:54 What you want to do is very complex and may not be possible. Presumably you want to find the foreground window to get the last selection. With Active Accessibility you could track changes in focus and use that to get the foreground window. Then maybe you'd get the selection from the last window that was in the foreground? Already it's getting awkward. Assuming that you can get the window you want, then you're faced with a different scenario for each program. Word has an object model. For IE you want to get the document.selection IF the document. selection.type is "Text". So you need to get hold of the IE document probably by enumerating child windows until you find an Internet Explorer_Server class window that you can retrieve a Document object from. You *could* do that, but what if the person is using Firefox? For Notepad you might be able to use EM_GETSEL along with API to get window text. I'm not sure about that. But even if it works that's only for a standard edit control. EM_GETSELTEXT is only for a RichEdit and probably won't work for a foreign process. Functions that return a pointer won't return a valid pointer to an external process because the pointer is a relative address. Etc. There's nothing that says a program must make it's text or selection available. Even Active Accessibility has limits as to what it can return from different types of windows, and as far as I know there's no AA method to return the current selection -- only the text content. And even if you work all that out, how do you figure out what the last selection's parent program is? Will you create a reference list of unique window class names and then just drill down until you find one? .... Then decide from there how to get the selection? So you'd retrieve the document object if you come across an "Internet Explorer_Server" class window, or drill down to the edit window when you find a "Notepad" class window, etc.? With that method you'll be severely limited in terms of how many program types you can deal with. You'll get IE but not Firefox or Opera; MS Word but not OpenOffice Writer, Abiword, WordPro, etc. Maybe someone will come up with a way to do what you want. Maybe there's some kind of high-level functionality that I'm not thinking of. But I'd be surprised if that's the case. It sounds like you're trying to just send key sequences to get the different windows, but I don't see how that can work. You can't just usurp the Desktop and set focus to whatever window you like. > >>> ALT+TAB > > Next instruction was send CTR+INS :). > > Next : > ALT +TAB+SHIFT > > and I must read the text like SHIFT+INS. > How can I read text to any variable? > > >
From: ptpwjp on 1 Nov 2009 11:56 > What you want to do is very complex and > may not be possible. Presumably you want > to find the foreground window to get the > last selection. Yes. ...... > Word has an object model. > > For IE you want > to get the document.selection ...... but what if the person is > using Firefox? It is reason why I send ctrl+ins , it is universal method I think. But I can't get data to variable in my program. Haw can I do it? > And even if you work all that out, I don't understand this, I'm not English. > how do you figure out > what the last selection's parent program is? It isn't interesting for me what parent program is. I need only selected text. In old times, sometimes, in newspapers there was same programs which added new menu to system menu. For example: "change to yellow", near menu copy, past, cut, delete. But it was always difficult to uninstall, and I don't like this kind of changes. But the sense of problem is the same. ...... > Maybe someone will come up with a way to do what > you want. Maybe there's some kind of high-level > functionality that I'm not thinking of. But I'd be surprised > if that's the case. > It sounds like you're trying to > just send key sequences to get the different windows, > but I don't see how that can work. You can't just usurp > the Desktop and set focus to whatever window you like.
From: mayayana on 1 Nov 2009 13:39 MS newsgroups seem to be acting up again and blocking my post. See here: http://www.google.com/url?url=http://groups.google.com/g/8357ff0a/t/c20f2985 43cfa7f3/d/1bf2a29ad8f3353b%3Fq%3Dkeybd_event%2Bhook%231bf2a29ad8f3353b&ei=b dTtSrHnIubWlAew6tHwCg&sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&source=groups&usg=AFQjCNECZknGAyvGZjM vLAOecZD7-7hUVQ
From: ptpwjp on 1 Nov 2009 14:45 > That's interesting. I didn't know about that. > I just tried the API keybd_event, sending the > following parameters in succession: > > 17, 0, 0, 0 > 45, 0, 0, 0 > 45, 0, KEYEVENTF_KEYUP, 0 > 17, 0, KEYEVENTF_KEYUP, 0 I don't understand this table , but I tested it too. In my program is instruction: SendKeys.Send("%{TAB}^{INS}%+{TAB}") (% - SHIFT; ^-CTRL; %- ALT) 1. %{TAB} - give processor to last application; but chars: ^{INS}%+{TAB}" are in keyboard , so they work: 2. ^{INS} copy selected text to box(?)- where- I haven't word in my mind now,write it to me; 3. %+{TAB} - give processor to previous application; But in my test, previous application wasn't my application, but VB2008 with debugger, so after test was result: the selected text was in box(?)- I test it in notepad,but processor was returned to vb2008 but next instruction wasn't done. So solution: SendKeys.Send("%{TAB}") SendKeys.Send("^{INS}") SendKeys.Send("%+{TAB}") isn't good. Because after 1, the next can't be done, because in keyboard buffer there wasn't anything. So how can I get text from box to my variable in my VB2008 application?
From: mayayana on 1 Nov 2009 15:19
> > > > 17, 0, 0, 0 > > 45, 0, 0, 0 > > 45, 0, KEYEVENTF_KEYUP, 0 > > 17, 0, KEYEVENTF_KEYUP, 0 > I don't understand this table , but I tested it too. > It's the API version of SendKeys. > 2. ^{INS} copy selected text to box(?)- where- I > haven't word in my mind > now,write it to me; You mean the Clipboard? The Clipboard is where Ctrl+Insert sends the selected text. You realize that you need to get the text from the Clipboard after you do Ctrl+Insert? > So how can I get text from box to my variable in my VB2008 application? > Sorry but I didn't really understand the rest of your post, except that I understood the Sendkeys isn't working the way you want it to. It sounds like you need to try it outside of the debugger. (?) A .Net expert would have to advise you on that. I think a system keyboard hook would really be the way to go, but if you are new at this then that might be too complex. |