Control_GetText and Control_SetText

[rjp74]

Hi,
I am trying to use ThinBasic to automate an existing win32 graphics application (xara).
However, I seem unable to make it work. The Control_GetText and Control_SetText calls appear to have no effect.

I can get the application handle easily using this code.
hWnd = Win_FindByTitle("Xara...")
I know the controlID using WinSpy
controlID = 14377

However, in ThinBasic I have not found a way to make the following have any effect:
EditText= CONTROL_GetText(hwnd, controlID)
s = CONTROL_SetText(hwnd, controlID, "10cm")
There are no errors and nothing appears to happen.

If I do this for a dialogue I create in Thinbasic it all seems to work ok. But for other apps nothing.
I can make AutoIT and Autokey work perfectly but prefer to use ThinBasic due to its langauge structure and debugging capabilities.

Can someone tell me the correct way to get and set text in the other applications edit boxes please.

[ErosOlmi]

Ciao rjp74 and welcome to thinBasic community.

CONTROL_GetText and CONTROL_SetText work using the window handle of the parent window containing the control plus the control id
Win_FindByTitle instead just return the windows handle of the window whose title is ... something your search for.

So you need the windows handle of the parent control (that is a dynamic internal handle that change at every window creation) plus the control ID (that is always the same)

Finding the parent window is not that easy in some situations because complex user interfaces there can have hidden windows of windows not easily identifiable.

Can you please post a picture of the are you area trying to get?

[rjp74]

[QUOTE=Can you please post a picture of the are you area trying to get?[/QUOTE]
Thank you for your comments. Here is a picture showing the main parts I am in interested in automating. The arrows show the main controls I am trying to access.
The text boxes are only meaningful when the green highlighted panel is active. I have to add code that ensures this, or do it by hand for testing purposes.

xara controls.png

If I was doing this in AutoIT I would write the following code. This works perfectly.

Const $zara = "[CLASS:XTPMainFrame]"
Const $xX = 14377
; -- set "X" edit box to contain the text "1.00cm"
ControlSetText($zara, "1.00cm", $xX)

Setting the text is one thing - I also need to send an {Enter} to get xara to action the new value. This I can do through a second call. I only need do it after all the values have been entered.
First I need to get some form of set text and get text working. I seem to be totallly stuck with this.

Perhaps you have an example showing how to set or read the display text box for something simple such as the standard Windows Calculator? Given a working example I am sure I could discover how to make the same thing work for my xara script.
many thanks

[Petr Schreiber]

Hi rjp74,

maybe you could try a bit more low level approach:

' -- Add these functions to your code
Function Custom_SetText( hWindow As DWord, idCtl As Long, sText As String )

  Dim szText As Asciiz * 1024
  szText = sText
     
  DWord hCtl = Win_GetDlgItem(hWindow, idCtl)
  
  SendMessage hCtl, %WM_SETTEXT, 0, VarPtr(szText)

End Function

Function Custom_SendEnterKey( hWindow As DWord, idCtl As Long )

  DWord hCtl = Win_GetDlgItem(hWindow, idCtl)
  
  Win_SetFocus( hCtl )
  SendKeys("{ENTER}")
  
End Function

You can use this code like:

DWord hWnd = Win_FindByTitle("Xara...") 
Long  controlID = 14377
Custom_SetText(hWnd, controlID, "1.00cm")
Custom_SendEnterKey(hWnd, controlID)

Petr

[ErosOlmi]

Dear rjp74,

I have bad news, sorry

The main problem is that thinBasic UI module is not designed to automate controls in process different from current thinBasic process. AutoIt instead was initially designed to control windows in whatever process they are. For this reason AutoIt developer designed some specific commands (in this case ControlSetText) to be able to discover and manage child controls.

In details, CONTROL SET TEXT uses Windows API called SetWindowText and this API is able to set text only in the controls created by the current process (that is in windows created by thinBasic scripts). To SET TEXT into controls not belonging into current process, Microsoft suggest to use SendMessage to send a %WM_SETTEXT message to the window you want to change text. The disadvantage of this process is that you need to know the exact window handle of the control you want to change the text content and this is dynamic.

So, for the moment I have no solution for your request.
I will study AutoIt ControlSetText function to see if I can add something similar to thinBasic.

Ciao
Eros

[rjp74]

Hi,

Thanks for informing me that for the moment there is no solution. I am relieved that it was not caused by my making some basic mistakes.

I tried the code suggested by Petr Schreiber but it failed on this line of code:
DWord hCtl = Win_GetDlgItem(hWindow, idCtl)
It returns 0 instead of the expected value. Here is the trace and the Au3Info display for the specified control.

Custom_SetText.png

I did look up the web page for the source for AutoIT. It is here:
https://github.com/AutoHotkey/AutoHo...ce/script2.cpp
I am not a c++ or a windows deep internals programmer but it seems that the magic occurs in a routine called DetermineTargetWindow()

many thanks for your help

[ErosOlmi]

Thanks a lot for the AutoIt link.
As I suspected, it is using SendMessage with %WM_SETTEXT message

ResultType Line::ControlSetText(char *aControl, char *aNewText, char *aTitle, char *aText
	, char *aExcludeTitle, char *aExcludeText)
{
	g_ErrorLevel->Assign(ERRORLEVEL_ERROR); // Set default ErrorLevel.
	HWND target_window = DetermineTargetWindow(aTitle, aText, aExcludeTitle, aExcludeText);
	if (!target_window)
		return OK;
	HWND control_window = ControlExist(target_window, aControl); // This can return target_window itself for cases such as ahk_id %ControlHWND%.
	if (!control_window)
		return OK;
	// SendMessage must be used, not PostMessage(), at least for some (probably most) apps.
	// Also: No need to call IsWindowHung() because SendMessageTimeout() should return
	// immediately if the OS already "knows" the window is hung:
	DWORD result;
	SendMessageTimeout(control_window, WM_SETTEXT, (WPARAM)0, (LPARAM)aNewText
		, SMTO_ABORTIFHUNG, 5000, &result);
	DoControlDelay;
	return g_ErrorLevel->Assign(ERRORLEVEL_NONE); // Indicate success.
}

I think the trick is inside ControlExist function. It should be able to enumerate though all child controls even if in between the main windows and the needed control there are hidden windows like in the case of XARA where the Edit control you want to change is inside other two parent windows.

I will see what I can do. It is quite interesting having something similar.

Ciao
Eros

[ErosOlmi]

I think I've found a piece of Power Basic code I can use as a starter.
http://www.powerbasic.com/support/pb...umChildWindows

The API to be used is EnumChildWindows
Once I've the handle of the main Window (in this case Xara) I will use EnumChildWindows to enumerate all child windows (controls) of a certains class or having a certain Control ID.
Once found I can use SendMessage ... %WM_SETTEXT to fill the requested control with required text

Should be quite easy but I need some days to develop and test.

I will let your know.
Eros

[ErosOlmi]

I've downloaded and installed Xara Designer 7 in order to test it.
Than created a PB application to see if the idea I had is working or not and it seems all is working fine like in AutoIt.

So ...I think by this evening I will replicate AutoIt function called ControlSetText
Initially I will create a specific module to be tested in thinBasic scripts. If tests will be OK, I will include into UI module

Stay tuned ...

[rjp74]

Hi, I made some progress. I needed to write a recursive control finder that returned the parent handle for that control. Then I could correctly use the send message function.
The code doesnt do much - it simply writes "1.00cm" into the X text box of Xara.
Next task is to find out how to simulate the pressing of the enter key to get the value accepted.....
After that I will need mouse clicks, and control clicks. I can live without control_getText for now but I can see that other people would find this very helpful.

' Empty ThinBASIC CONSOLE file template
Uses "UI"
Uses "console"  
Declare Function GetWindow Lib "user32.dll"  Alias "GetWindow" (ByVal hWnd As DWord, ByVal uCmd As Long) As Long   
Declare Function GetDlgCtrlID Lib "user32.dll" Alias "GetDlgCtrlID" (ByVal hwndCtl As DWord) As Integer

  
DWord hWnd = Win_FindByTitle("Xara...") 
Long  cId_X = 14377
DWord Parent = 0 
   
   Parent = FindHandle(hWnd, cId_X)  
   Console_WriteLine Str$(Parent)
   Custom_SetText(Parent, cId_X, "1.00cm")
   Console_WaitKey

Function FindHandle(hWnd As DWord, myCtrlID As Long ) As DWord
  Long hChild = GetWindow(hWnd, %GW_CHILD) 
  While hChild       
     Long thisCtrlId = GetDlgCtrlID(hChild) 
     If thisCtrlId = myCtrlID Then Return  hChild    ' found it 
     Long FoundParent = FindHandle(hChild, myCtrlID) 
     If (FoundParent > 0) Then Return FoundParent     ' no need to search further
     hChild = GetWindow(hChild, %GW_HWNDNEXT) 
  Wend 
  Return 0      ' not found               
End Function

Function Custom_SetText( hWindow As DWord, idCtl As Long, sText As String)
   Dim szText As Asciiz * 1024
   szText = sText
   SendMessage hWindow, %WM_SETTEXT, 0, VarPtr(szText)
End Function