VS 2008 Controlling External Application
Jun 18, 2009
I need a quick way to control an external application. For example, I want to be able to... let's say... click a button and open up paint and zoom to 200%. This isn't my intention but that's basically the functionality that I need. I figured there must be a simple way to do this. I need to open the application, make choices (not all have keyboard shortcuts) and type in information.I've come across "shell" but that doesn't get me anywhere except opening the application.
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Aug 15, 2009
I am currently working on making a macro in visual basic that will control an external application. I need to know how I can click the menu options in this program. Here is the code I have so far, which makes the application window active.[code]
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Dec 22, 2009
I am trying to control an external application using visual basic. I have spy++ in order to get the windows handles of all the tool bars/buttons etc. Can someone refer me to some code/ tutorials on how i can control the application. I will need to perform mouse clicks (ex clicking file>open) and sending key strokes in that application.
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Dec 11, 2009
at work here we use a Remote Machine Viewer called FitNet which is proprietary to NCR and WalMart. However, I had no hand in developing this application and the developers no longer are emplyed here or did they assign anyone to take it over. I was asked to take a look at it and see if I could come up with something. The application is a .NET app but when I use .NET Reflector to get an idea aboutthe code it says no CLI header found.
[Code]...
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Jun 21, 2009
I'm trying to write a vb.net application that works with a 3rd party application called FuzzyTech. Unfortionalty FuzzyTech is quite old so the only way I can interact with it is buy using DDE. FuzzyTech acts as a DDE server. After a bit of research I found a library called NDde which enables me to use DDE. I understand that vb.net does not natively supprt it as it is an old technology.
Now fuzzyTech seems to only respond to the DDE connect and pokes when in debug mode. The only way I can find to get the program in to debug mode is from the menu bar (Debug > Interactive). So I have written an application that runs fuzzyTech, grabs the window and then accesses the menu to put it in to debug mode. My code can then use DDE. I have all of this working ok (although it does feel like a bit of a hack). The problem is I don't want users to be able to see this happening.
I want fuzzyTech to be hidden.After more research I found I could hide the window on startup by using fuzzypProcess.StartInfo.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden. However when I do this my code to grab the window and send the menu commands then fails. I think this is because the window title becomes blank when hidden.So I need to know a way of controlling the program after it is hidden or hiding it after it is in debug mode. This is where I am stuck. I'm very new to programming and this has got me completely stumped.
Here is some of the code I am using:
Private fuzzypProcess As Process = New Process()
Private Sub LoadFuzzyTech()
Try
fuzzypProcess.StartInfo.FileName = projectPath & projectTitle & ".ftl"
[code]....
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Mar 1, 2010
Currently I am using a simple
VB
Shell("C:applicationpathapplication.exe")
[code].....
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Jun 24, 2010
I have an app that calls another executable and then minimizes it until I need it. But when I do this, my app loses focus and when the user types into my app it inputs unwanted input to the minimized external application.
Is there a way to give and take focus between my vb app and the external one?
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Aug 18, 2009
I'm hoping someone can provide me with some help in regards to this, here's a quick overview of what I'm doing: I'm using user32.dll API on a 2 second timer to detect which window is open, FindWindow(), once I've found the window I'm looking for, I use FindWindowEx() to get the child window of the previously found one.
So I've got my window which contains 2 items. An image, and an Input box.
2 questions (Minor, and Major)
Minor: Is there a better way to monitor when a particular window opens?
Major: How would I extract the image that is held on the form? And then insert text into the input box?
Note: The image is variable - it's polled from a website.
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May 3, 2009
I know how to run forms in second monitor, but I dont know how can I lauch and external exe program in second monitor. How can I do this?
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Mar 22, 2010
I have a pdf that I want to be able to open when a button is clicked within the application that I have built in Visual Studio 2008 in .Net.
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Apr 3, 2009
I'm trying to make an application to edit an external exe's icon, and other resources, much like ResHacker.
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Mar 2, 2011
I have 2 applications, "Application A" and "Application B" In application B, there is a loop that do some work Now, from Application A, I want to control this loop, in application B, so the loop gets run once each time Application A say so Up to this point, There is no problem, I just created a Mutex that I pass from an application to the other.
The problem comes when Application A want to stop the game -If application A terminate its thread without closing the Mutex, Application B does take it and the loop goes on non stop. But what I want is to exit the loop.I can immagine 3 ways to terminate the loop, but none of them apears to be the good way to do
1) Closing the mutex in application A. This will create an exception in Application B, which I can catch to terminate the loop
2) Create a custom windows message for Application A to notify Application B that the mutex needs to be close so Application B can exit the loop and close the mutex. ( However, I am using a mutex to avoid to use this windows message pathern, I do not want the UI thread to be involve in the mecanism )
3) Create another mutex that would be own by application A and that will be blocking another thread in Application B. This way, Application A by releasing this mutex can permit this other thread to set a boolean flag telling the thread in the loop to exit the loop.
To illustrate this, I made this short code. It implement the option 1) which is using the exception to exit the loop
Application A
Public Class Form1
Dim MutexA As Threading.Mutex
[code]....
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Apr 25, 2011
I'm running a VB.NET application 24 hours a day on a dedicated machine. I'd like to be able to receive status updates and also control/debug the application remotely (i.e. from another computer via the internet).It would be an advantage if the communication was lightweight (in terms of bytes sent and received) so I can control the thing without needing a fast internet connection. Also, I'm running the application from within the IDE at the moment because there are some unhandled exceptions and it's easier to debug this way. It would be nice if I didn't have to compile it and catch all the errors.What is the easiest way to set something like this up, and what do I need to be aware of in terms of security?
Update:To clarify what input I need to give the application - in theory, none. If all went to plan I'd just set the application off and reading some sort of log would be fine. The problem is that it is unstable (mainly because it calls a web service which is very unstable and returns all sorts of weird things) and therefore seems to need constant input on my part.
It was my thinking that the only way I could do this sort of debugging remotely is by catching every error I could, reading the log, and somehow instructing the application to behave properly in future.
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Aug 17, 2011
I Have one Windows Application in which i have one MDI Form (Say App1). And I too have another Windows Application in which I have a Child Form (Say App2). So now i want to Call App2 from App1 .. And want to Display App2 form As MDIChild in App1 MDI Form . I am Able to open the Form of App2 , But how to set It As App1' Child .
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Jan 23, 2010
I use SetParent to make an external application a "child" of my Main .Net application. This works fine.What I need to know is why can't I use Me.MDIChildren(0)I thought that using SetParent would increase the number of children by 1, thus allowing me to reference it with the above code, but it shows there are no children in the array.I have been trying, without luck, for 2 days to try to maximize an external app being displayed in my app. I can get it to display, but I would love it if it could Dock to the same size as its container (a panel)
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May 25, 2011
With many of the programs that I use, I have noticed that the file dialog boxes automatically enter a new folder (if I create a folder thru the dialog box). But my OpenFileDialog boxes don't do that in my programs.When I open the OpenFileDialog and press the New Folder button, the box stays in the current directory and I am forced to click into the new folder. I have researched the OpernFileDialog and I don't understand how to change this behavior. I want to eliminate this extra click to enter the new folder.
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Jun 7, 2010
I have done a search on Google but not really found anything. Worst case I suppose I could use "powercgf.exe -l" to list them modes then try to get the GUIDs out of that.
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Jul 29, 2011
My form contains a datagrid and a checked listbox. The listbox is populated on the form_load event. There's a function called when the datagrid's SelectionChanged event is triggered that modifies the checkmarks in the listbox. It all works fine when I manually click on any item in the datagrid.
However, the very first time the form runs, the checkmarks are not affected, even though the first item in the datagrid appears selected. I discovered that this is because the actual listbox is not yet populated on the form at the time the very first SelectionChanged event is triggered. So when the function tries setting the checkboxes, it doesn't get anywhere, since it doesn't see any items in the listbox.
Somehow the datagrid is getting populated, even before the form_load event is triggered. I need the listbox to be populated before the datagrid is populated, but I have no idea how to control this.
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Feb 6, 2010
I have a TextBox called Social. As you type in a Social Security Number into the textbox, it formats itself into the standard Social Security Number Format (XXX-XX-XXXX). It automatically adds in the dashes after the third and fifth number, or corrects/removes the dashes if numbers are added or removed from in front of the dashes. Also I coded the script to record the caret's location so that the caret goes back to where the caret was before the adjustment in dashes.
I used Pos and PosHold to hold the caret's location.
The problems I am having are:If I remove a number before one of the dashes, the caret is reset to '0' from using break points, it seem to jump out of the if statement before setting the location of the caret. Sometimes when a number is removed from before the dashes, the dashes are removed like scripted but, the dash is not put back in the correct location. This seems to happen primarily if you have numbers passed the second dash.
Social_TextChanged
Private Sub Social_TextChanged(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Social.TextChanged
[Code].....
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Mar 20, 2010
I'm having a lot of trouble finding a solution to my problem, and its probably because I don't know exactly how to ask the right question - can anyone here point me in the right direction?
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Oct 3, 2009
I have a quick, yet simple (i think?) question. How can i use the address bar to send commands to a external application?
Example:
AOL Instant Messenger I havent used this application in a long time. But i remembered if you wanted to add a friend to AIM from their online profile it directed them to a link such as:
aim:addfriend=contactID and AIM would pick this up and add it the contactID to the application. The link i posted is more than likely not the correct link they use but it shows what im trying to accomplish.
Im looking to achieve something along the lines of: myApplication:command=commandValue
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Jan 18, 2010
I am buidling an application that users can use to submit text data and attachments to email recipients. Certain fields, quite a few in fact from the textboxes in the app will be in the email body, and some in the subject line.This is how I am doing it right now, but I figured there has to be a better way. In VB it is one single line of code, not many like it is here. Ideally I would like to be able to better control the positioning in the message body.
mail.Body = String.Concat(Label1.Text, " ", TextBox1.Text, " ", Label2.Text, " ", TextBox3.Text, " ", Label5.Text, " ", DateTimePicker1.Text, " ", Label3.Text, " ", TextBox2.Text, " ", Label6.Text, " ", RichTextBox1.Text, " ", Label7, " ", RichTextBox2.Text)
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Jun 3, 2011
I'm trying to use the Shell to have my application call an external application but its not working...I don't understand why. I get the following error: 'System.windows.shell' is a namespace and cannot be used as an expression!
Heres my code....any ideas what I'm doing wrong. Its got to be a simple...stupid error.
Private Sub mnuUpgrade_Click(ByVal Ctrl As Microsoft.Expression.Web.Interop.Legacy.CommandBarButton, ByRef CancelDefault As Boolean) Handles mnuUpgrade.Click
[CODE].....................
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Apr 9, 2011
I have VS 2008 and am working in VB.Net forms.I have a webbrowser control where I am trying to control input fields that are dynamically created. If a text field has proper handles such as id and name tags there aren't any problems.
For example, I am trying to work with twitter for posts. I know twitter has an API but I want to work with many similar systems and want to avoid the API as its case specific and I want to scale things within the VB.Net form. The login fields for twitter are easily handled, however the posting field once your logged in is just a text area with a class. There is a tagname but I have been unable to post using the tagname element.Any examples of posting to twitter without the API ?
web1.Document.GetElementById ... ?
web1.Document.GetElementsByTagName ... ?
I've done extensive searching but can find nothing to make it happen. DOM inspectors havn't revealed much about the field.
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Mar 23, 2012
how to center an external app on the screen, an example would be Adobe Reader, using either Process.Start or Shell. I've 'attempted' both but haven't found anything to control the position. I've also found some code using Api32 functions, FindWindow, MoveWindow, etc, but have not been successful at those either.
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Mar 17, 2009
I have looked all over for an answer to this question and have failed to find one. I have two applications. App1: I have no control over anything in this application aside from standard user inteface options. (Enter text, apply, ok) Someone else has created this program and I have no direct access to the database or any code. I can not make any changes to this application.App2: This is the application that I am currently creating. All changes will need to be made here.I currently have a program set up to copy information from App2 to App1. A user clicks a button in App2 and then goes to App1 and hits F8. App2 is waiting to get F8 and when it does it proceeds to use a series of sendkeys to enter the information from App2 into App1.Question 1: Is there a better way to get info from App2 into App1?I am trying to "smarten" my program up a bit. I would like it to read fields from App1 and compare them to certain variables and then do an action. I have tried to use sendkeys to copy from App1. This sometimes works, and other times the clipboard says object not collected it is not a valid format. So this method is obviously not reliable enough for me.Question 2: How do I copy data from a text box in App1? Sendkeys seems to not work. Again, keep in mind that I don't know textbox names in App1 so as far as I know, I can't do anything like textbox1.copy.
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May 1, 2012
How can I move an external application. For example, notepad.location = 200, 200
how would I tell the program what notepad is?
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May 19, 2012
I want to be able to activate my application through my website. Like AIM, they have a protocol "aim?.." what ever, I was wondering how I might go about that? My application is standalone, I wonder if this would reduce the chances of this being possible.
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May 1, 2011
I have got Skype configured to launch minimized on windows starts.Now I need to bring Skype to front from a button from my full screen application button. I have got this code:
For Each p As Process In Process.GetProcessesByName("skype")
ShowWindow(p.MainWindowHandle, SHOW_WINDOW.SW_NORMAL)
Next p
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Dec 17, 2009
In VB.NET, you can set focus to an external application using
AppActivate("Windows Name")
or
AppActivate(processID As Integer)
Now this works fine if you do for example:
Dim intNotePad As Integer = Shell("C:WINNTNotepad.exe",
AppWinStyle.MinimizedNoFocus)
AppActivate(intNotePad)
But when I do:
For Each theprocess As Process In processlist
If InStr(theprocess.ProcessName, "DWG") Then
strProcessList += String.Format("Process: {0} ID: {1}", theprocess.ProcessName, theprocess.Id) + vbCrLf
AppActivate(theprocess.ID)
[code]....
then it doesn't find the window, even if it's open and even if it finds the window using the window title.But I need it by process ID.How can I do that?I need it to set focus on a 3rd party installer in a windows installer setup project.
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