Re: Please please please please ... - C# Discussion Boards

Stark DaFixzer wrote:
but I have no friends around me

hmm, well, may be make this[^] your friend. You see it[^] knows the status of website Wink | ;)

Yusuf
May I help you?

thank you yusuf , it's very useful for me ....

Shokarn .... Smile | :)

I know nothing , I know nothing ...

... please please please please give me a working code sample that uses SendInput to SIMULATE the movement of a mouse on a x64 vista system:

1. move mouse to screen location 200,100
2. mouse down
3. move the mouse down 12 (to 200,112)
4. mouse up

it seems like such a trivial task but is clearly one that i have not been able to master. i have searched the internet high and low, found a gazillion articles on the subject, tried 9 different samples (all failed), and have spent a minimum of 100 hours on this problem. I've learned a lot but the idea of running 32-bit DLL's on a 64-bit computer is still way over my head ... i need help desperately.

I have been able to get it to work using SetCursorPos and mouse_event but those methods actually steal the mouse from the user and make him VERY grumpy Smile | :)

Thank you oh so VERY MUCH in advance!

IceWater42 wrote:
1. move mouse to screen location 200,100
2. mouse down
3. move the mouse down 12 (to 200,112)
4. mouse up

Uhh, this is nice and all, but if the user is moving the mouse in the same window that this code is sending messages to, it'll fail to do what you want since the real mouse will be mixing in it's messages with yours. The only way to prevent that is to stop the user from using the mouse at all while you send your mouse messages. Again, a very ugly solution.

A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]

Dave Kreskowiak
Microsoft MVP
Visual Developer - Visual Basic
2006, 2007, 2008

yes ... i agree it is ugly. I think by now i have tried ALL the ugly ways of doing it. That is why i posted the plea for help ... i keep hoping for a prettier solution.

Through trial-and-error these past 2 weeks, i have seen the ugly side-effects of many of the researched "solutions" ... none of which were very User-Friendly. Add in the complications of 64-bit hardware with 32-bit DLLs and (for me) the task is daunting.

That is why i posted my plea ... i was hoping that there actually might be a reasonably good way to do it, and that one of the very creative people here would show me how.

Maybe there still is a glimmer of hope, thanks to the time and effort of FocusedWolf, below.

IceWater42 wrote:
Maybe there still is a glimmer of hope, thanks to the time and effort of FocusedWolf, below.

Your only congratulating him becuase he wrote your entire project for you. Too bad too. You've skipped the part where you learn how Windows works internally.

I've already found ways in which that code will break. When your users find them too, have fun trying to diagnose the problems and work around them.

A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]

Dave Kreskowiak
Microsoft MVP
Visual Developer - Visual Basic
2006, 2007, 2008

AAAAAAAAAAAANd course failed, exam missed. enjoy the retake :P

Check out the CodeProject forum Guidelines[^]

hmm i think i tried using sendinput and found it sucked. I like using send message because you dont need to actually move the mouse about to click... you can send the coordinates of where a click is to occur... much more sexy right. Their might be problems or something with some windows and i think i had to have the window focused to get it to actually work.... unfortunatelly its not as nice as when doing sendmessage with keystrokes because in that case theirs no need to have the window focused... good for my bot... had it in the background doing stuff while i used the computer lol...

anyway here's what i had for using sendmessage (i think i had code for sendinput and deleted it because while it worked, it required both focus of the window and ownership of the moues cursor):

<br />
using System;<br />
using System.Text;<br />
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;<br />
using System.Drawing;<br />
using System.Windows.Forms;<br />
using System.Threading;<br />
<br />
namespace MouseKeyboardLibrary<br />
{<br />
    /// <summary><br />
    /// Operations that simulate mouse events<br />
    /// </summary><br />
    public class MouseSimulatorMessenger<br />
    {<br />
<br />
        [DllImport("user32.dll")]<br />
        static extern IntPtr GetForegroundWindow();<br />
<br />
        [DllImport("user32.dll")]<br />
        private static extern int SetForegroundWindow(IntPtr hWnd);<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
        //const int MK_LBUTTON = 0x1;<br />
        //const int MK_RBUTTON = 0x2;<br />
        //const int MK_SHIFT = 0x4;<br />
        //const int MK_CONTROL = 0x8;<br />
        //const int MK_MBUTTON = 0x10;<br />
        //const int MK_XBUTTON1 = 0x20;<br />
        //const int MK_XBUTTON2 = 0x40;<br />
<br />
        static IntPtr? handle = IntPtr.Zero;<br />
        public IntPtr? Handle<br />
        {<br />
            get { return handle; }<br />
            set { handle = value; }<br />
        }<br />
<br />
        #region Windows API Code<br />
<br />
        //x -> loword<br />
        //y -> hiword<br />
        private static IntPtr MakeLParam(int LoWord, int HiWord)<br />
        {<br />
            return (IntPtr)((HiWord << 16) | (LoWord & 0xffff)); //Int32 lParam = x + y * 0x00010000<br />
            //return (IntPtr)(LoWord + HiWord * 0x00010000);<br />
        }<br />
<br />
        const int WM_LBUTTONDOWN = 0x0201;<br />
        const int WM_LBUTTONUP = 0x0202;<br />
<br />
        const int WM_MBUTTONDOWN = 0x207;<br />
        const int WM_MBUTTONUP = 0x208;<br />
<br />
        const int WM_RBUTTONDOWN = 0x0204;<br />
        const int WM_RBUTTONUP = 0x0205;<br />
<br />
        [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)]<br />
        [DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true)]<br />
        static extern bool SendMessageA(IntPtr hWnd, int Msg, int wParam, IntPtr lParam);<br />
<br />
<br />
//PostMessage(hWndButton, WM_LBUTTONDOWN, MK_LBUTTON, MAKELPARAM(1,0));<br />
//PostMessage(hWndButton, WM_LBUTTONUP, 0, MAKELPARAM(1,0));<br />
<br />
        private static int MouseButtonDownInteger(MouseButton button)<br />
        {<br />
            switch (button)<br />
            {<br />
                case MouseButton.Left:<br />
                    return WM_LBUTTONDOWN;<br />
<br />
                case MouseButton.Middle:<br />
                    return WM_MBUTTONDOWN;<br />
<br />
                case MouseButton.Right:<br />
                    return WM_RBUTTONDOWN;<br />
            }<br />
<br />
            throw new ArgumentException("button");<br />
        }<br />
<br />
        private static int MouseButtonUpInteger(MouseButton button)<br />
        {<br />
            switch (button)<br />
            {<br />
                case MouseButton.Left:<br />
                    return WM_LBUTTONUP;<br />
<br />
                case MouseButton.Middle:<br />
                    return WM_MBUTTONUP;<br />
<br />
                case MouseButton.Right:<br />
                    return WM_RBUTTONUP;<br />
            }<br />
<br />
            throw new ArgumentException("button");<br />
        }<br />
<br />
        #endregion<br />
<br />
        #region Methods<br />
<br />
        /// <summary><br />
        /// Press a mouse button down<br />
        /// </summary><br />
        /// <param name="button"></param><br />
        public void MouseDown(MouseButton button, int x, int y)<br />
        {<br />
            //IntPtr oldFocus = GetForegroundWindow();<br />
<br />
            if(handle.HasValue)<br />
                SendMessageA(handle.Value, MouseButtonDownInteger(button), 0, MakeLParam(x, y));<br />
            else<br />
                throw new ArgumentNullException("handle");<br />
<br />
            //SetForegroundWindow(oldFocus);<br />
        }<br />
<br />
        /// <summary><br />
        /// Let a mouse button up<br />
        /// </summary><br />
        /// <param name="button"></param><br />
        public void MouseUp(MouseButton button, int x, int y)<br />
        {<br />
            //IntPtr oldFocus = GetForegroundWindow();<br />
<br />
            if (handle.HasValue)<br />
                SendMessageA(handle.Value, MouseButtonUpInteger(button), 0, MakeLParam(x, y));<br />
            else<br />
                throw new ArgumentNullException("handle");<br />
<br />
            //SetForegroundWindow(oldFocus);<br />
        }<br />
<br />
        /// <summary><br />
        /// Press a mouse button down<br />
        /// </summary><br />
        /// <param name="button"></param><br />
        public void MouseDown(MouseButtons button, int x, int y)<br />
        {<br />
            switch (button)<br />
            {<br />
                case MouseButtons.Left:<br />
                    MouseDown(MouseButton.Left, x, y);<br />
                    break;<br />
                case MouseButtons.Middle:<br />
                    MouseDown(MouseButton.Middle, x, y);<br />
                    break;<br />
                case MouseButtons.Right:<br />
                    MouseDown(MouseButton.Right, x, y);<br />
                    break;<br />
            }<br />
        }<br />
<br />
        /// <summary><br />
        /// Let a mouse button up<br />
        /// </summary><br />
        /// <param name="button"></param><br />
        public void MouseUp(MouseButtons button, int x, int y)<br />
        {<br />
            switch (button)<br />
            {<br />
                case MouseButtons.Left:<br />
                    MouseUp(MouseButton.Left, x, y);<br />
                    break;<br />
                case MouseButtons.Middle:<br />
                    MouseUp(MouseButton.Middle, x, y);<br />
                    break;<br />
                case MouseButtons.Right:<br />
                    MouseUp(MouseButton.Right, x, y);<br />
                    break;<br />
            }<br />
        }<br />
<br />
        /// <summary><br />
        /// Click a mouse button (down then up)<br />
        /// </summary><br />
        /// <param name="button"></param><br />
        public void Click(MouseButton button, int x, int y)<br />
        {<br />
            IntPtr oldFocus = GetForegroundWindow();<br />
<br />
            MouseDown(button, x, y);<br />
<br />
            Thread.Sleep(200);<br />
<br />
            MouseUp(button, x, y);<br />
<br />
            SetForegroundWindow(oldFocus);<br />
        }<br />
<br />
        /// <summary><br />
        /// Click a mouse button (down then up)<br />
        /// </summary><br />
        /// <param name="button"></param><br />
        public void Click(MouseButtons button, int x, int y)<br />
        {<br />
            switch (button)<br />
            {<br />
                case MouseButtons.Left:<br />
                    Click(MouseButton.Left, x, y);<br />
                    break;<br />
                case MouseButtons.Middle:<br />
                    Click(MouseButton.Middle, x, y);<br />
                    break;<br />
                case MouseButtons.Right:<br />
                    Click(MouseButton.Right, x, y);<br />
                    break;<br />
            }<br />
        }<br />
<br />
        /// <summary><br />
        /// Double click a mouse button (down then up twice)<br />
        /// </summary><br />
        /// <param name="button"></param><br />
        public void DoubleClick(MouseButton button, int x, int y)<br />
        {<br />
            Click(button, x, y);<br />
<br />
            Thread.Sleep(200);<br />
<br />
            Click(button, x, y);<br />
        }<br />
<br />
        /// <summary><br />
        /// Double click a mouse button (down then up twice)<br />
        /// </summary><br />
        /// <param name="button"></param><br />
        public void DoubleClick(MouseButtons button, int x, int y)<br />
        {<br />
            switch (button)<br />
            {<br />
                case MouseButtons.Left:<br />
                    DoubleClick(MouseButton.Left, x, y);<br />
                    break;<br />
                case MouseButtons.Middle:<br />
                    DoubleClick(MouseButton.Middle, x, y);<br />
                    break;<br />
                case MouseButtons.Right:<br />
                    DoubleClick(MouseButton.Right, x, y);<br />
                    break;<br />
            }<br />
        }<br />
<br />
        #endregion<br />
    }<br />
}<br />

Thank you so very much for your code and time. The MakeLParam code is especially cool. The most valuable info was actually your side comment:

Laugh | :laugh:

(i think i had code for sendinput and deleted it because while it worked, it required both focus of the window and ownership of the moues cursor) Laugh | :laugh:

... as that indeed makes SendInput a deal breaker.

I have tried SendMessage, and it did work, but as i recall it too had some undesirable side-effects ... hence the desperate plea. Once again, thank you.

Here an assembly with everything :P

http://wolfsfiles.googlepages.com/MouseKeyboardLibrary.zip[^]

Basically it started out as some freely available one i found on the internet, and over time i've been rewriting parts of it to suit my needs... like it didn't come with the sendmessage stuff or the new sendinput stuff i wrote today... Anyways if your interested in trying out sendinput, for the mouse atlesat,... it's in there.

Turns out when i said i tried the send input... it was probably the MouseEvent api i tried... nonetheless i saw it did the same behavior as i said... forcing the cursor to move to a position to click that position.

Was fun to write that... lol SendInput even has compatibility issues with 64bit and 32bit that took a bit of googling to get around.

I was wondering if I could ask a silly question.
Would it be possible to show an example of how to use the .dll with a Visual Basic app?

I understand what it does and everything just never wrote anything is c# and needed a starting point for a VB app i wanted to play with.

If by vb you mean vb.net, then it's really easy to do... just unpack the solution and copy it into your vb.net project... then go into visual studio, load your vb.net project, and then right click on your solution and click "Add Existing Project" and navigate to the project file in the dll project. After you do that, you have to go to your vb.net project, and expand the area called "References", and then a window pops up... click the "Project" tab... the c# project should be listed... add it.

Now what this means is the classes in the c# project should be callable from the vb.net project (although i never tried it... but that functionality is said to exist :P).

----------------

If by vb you mean... old vb... not vb.net... then you'd have to rewrite all of the code to get it to work. I have no real experience with old vb so can't help with that :P

from Visudalstudio, Array.Clone reads: Creates a shallow copy of a array

but from the following simple test code, the results (a[0]=0 for two messagebox shows) show that Array.Clone is a deep copy (or else, the second output should be 100, because a and b refere to the same memory), how to understand it? thanks.

int [] a = new int [1];
a[0] = 0;
MessageBox.Show(a[0].ToString());

int[] b = new int[1];

b =(int []) a.Clone();
b[0] = 100;
MessageBox.Show(a[0].ToString());

Hi,

a shallow copy copies everything at the first level, values get copied (what else could one do?) and references get copied (not cloned).

in your code, b is a new array which first holds a zero (cloned from a), then gets overwritten explicitly, and then you show a[0]???

Smile | :)

Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]

The quality and detail of your question reflects on the effectiveness of the help you are likely to get.
Show formatted code inside PRE tags, and give clear symptoms when describing a problem.

I think I am not so clear about shallow copy and deep copy.

it seems to me that shallow copy and deep copy are sometimes same but sometimes are different.

for value copy, are the same?
for reference copy, they are different.

copy of an int array belong to value copy?, but array variable belong to a reference type.
I think that copy of an int array is a reference copy, therefore, I think for shallow copy, it copies only refrence. later, I found that copy of an int array belong to value copy!

Hi,

a shallow copy copies value types and references; so all data is the same as the original, but no new objects got created except for the one class instance copied.

a deep copy copies value types and clones referenced objects; so all data is the same as the original, AND new objects got created every time there was a reference.

an array is a reference type.
when the array elements are value types (e.g. int[]) a shallow copya and a deep copy do the same: all values are copied in the new array;
when the array elements are objects (e.g. Control[]) a shallow copy just copies all references, a deep copy clones all referenced objects.

In another way: a shallow copy can be implemented as a memcpy(), copying bytes without knowing the types of the data copied; a deep copy needs to know whether the members are values or references.

Smile | :)

Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]

The quality and detail of your question reflects on the effectiveness of the help you are likely to get.
Show formatted code inside PRE tags, and give clear symptoms when describing a problem.

thanks a lot!

Why is your example showing the value of a[0] twice?? You're never showing the value of b[0].

A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]

Dave Kreskowiak
Microsoft MVP
Visual Developer - Visual Basic
2006, 2007, 2008

yes, I want to show a[0] twice in order to check whether the change of b[0] results in also the change of a[0].

I have a .NET application which is using the Microsoft.mshtml PIA. It frequently experienced exceptions with a message saying that the Microsoft.mshtml assembly or one of its dependencies is missing. Weirdly enough, this happens on some machines, but works fine on others! (actually, it works fine on the majority of machines)

I have tried to resolve this problem by adding PIA as private assembly but problem was not resolved.
then I have installed Microsoft.mshtml PIA in client's machienes GAC through installer. But not working.

I am not getting why this dll is not working as private assembly.

I am getting following Error message:
"Error unable to cas COM object of type 'System._ComObject' to class type 'mshtml.HTMLSelectElementClass'.
components that enter the CLR and do not suppor IProvideClassInfo or that do not have any interop assembly registered will be wrappen in the_
ComObject type. Instances of this type cannot be cast to any other class; however they can be cast to interfaces as long as the underlying COM
component supports QueryInterface calls for the IID of the interface."

Thanks for helps,

Manoj

That error means that the machine in question doesn't have the COM-based mshtml library installed that your code is using, or has an older version that your code doesn't support. I'd start by checking which version(s) of IE are installed on the machines that work and what version(s) are installed on the machines that don't.

A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]

Dave Kreskowiak
Microsoft MVP
Visual Developer - Visual Basic
2006, 2007, 2008

It is working on IE Version: 6.0.2900.2180.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254.
But not working on IE Version: 6.0.2900.2180.xpsp_sp2_gdr.090206-1233.

How Can I fix this problem. D'Oh! | :doh:

Either reintall IE6, or upgrade the machines to IE7 or 8.

A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]

Dave Kreskowiak
Microsoft MVP
Visual Developer - Visual Basic
2006, 2007, 2008

Hi,

can anybody help me regarding,

creating the notepad application with keyboard shortcuts for copy,cut,paste.....etc..in C#.Net

A TextBox already has those keyboard shortcuts built in. You don't need to add anything extra. Besides that, a notepad application is relatively simple. Try coding it yourself, and posting when you would like help with specific problems

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow