Windows CBT Hooks (Help!)

15 Jan 2007 5:47 PM

andyblum

I hope you can answer a question. I am writing a poker utility that
tracks what windows are open and displays information about opponents
that are still playing and their previous history that is stored in a
game DB. It is a very cool project with Pattern Recognition (Pixel
Screen SCraping to OCR) and pretty advanced calculations. I
just started writing my first prototype in C# and discovered that I
could not set a System Wide CBT hook.

..Net will not allow hooks CBT hooks to be set globally, period! Works
for mouse and keyboard, but not CBT.

I need to trap when a window is created, destroyed, gotfocus, or
resized. I do not want to cancel or redirect those messages. I just
need to get new rect information about the window.

I have discovered ways of doing it in either VB6 or C++. I am not sure
which is the best strategy to pursue. I do not code in either
language. Can I have this hook in VB or C++ and then call my C#
function? Anone have any suggestions for interacting in between
managed and unmanaged code when the unmanaged code needs to trigger a
C# method?

Thanks,

Andy

15 Jan 2007 11:30 PM

Ashot Geodakov

Your best bet is a Windows Hook DLL written in C++ that will combine Win32
API for hooks and managed C++ for interaction with your C#.

You don't need to be C++ savvy, just use one of the MSDN samples as a
template. First, use their sample to create your hook DLL. Then add CLR
support to the sample and create a managed (ref) C++ class which you will
use to send data to C#.

<andyb***@gmail.com> wrote in message
Show quote

news:1168883242.169795.141610@38g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>I hope you can answer a question. I am writing a poker utility that
> tracks what windows are open and displays information about opponents
> that are still playing and their previous history that is stored in a
> game DB. It is a very cool project with Pattern Recognition (Pixel
> Screen SCraping to OCR) and pretty advanced calculations. I
> just started writing my first prototype in C# and discovered that I
> could not set a System Wide CBT hook.
>
> .Net will not allow hooks CBT hooks to be set globally, period! Works
> for mouse and keyboard, but not CBT.
>
> I need to trap when a window is created, destroyed, gotfocus, or
> resized. I do not want to cancel or redirect those messages. I just
> need to get new rect information about the window.
>
> I have discovered ways of doing it in either VB6 or C++. I am not sure
> which is the best strategy to pursue. I do not code in either
> language. Can I have this hook in VB or C++ and then call my C#
> function? Anone have any suggestions for interacting in between
> managed and unmanaged code when the unmanaged code needs to trigger a
> C# method?
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Andy
>

16 Jan 2007 1:48 AM

Mark R. Dawson

Hi Andy,
take a look at the following link, it might be able to help you:
http://www.codeproject.com/csharp/GlobalSystemHook.asp

Mark.

--
http://www.markdawson.org
http://themightycoder.spaces.live.com

Show quote

"andyb***@gmail.com" wrote:

> I hope you can answer a question. I am writing a poker utility that
> tracks what windows are open and displays information about opponents
> that are still playing and their previous history that is stored in a
> game DB. It is a very cool project with Pattern Recognition (Pixel
> Screen SCraping to OCR) and pretty advanced calculations. I
> just started writing my first prototype in C# and discovered that I
> could not set a System Wide CBT hook.
>
> ..Net will not allow hooks CBT hooks to be set globally, period! Works
> for mouse and keyboard, but not CBT.
>
> I need to trap when a window is created, destroyed, gotfocus, or
> resized. I do not want to cancel or redirect those messages. I just
> need to get new rect information about the window.
>
> I have discovered ways of doing it in either VB6 or C++. I am not sure
> which is the best strategy to pursue. I do not code in either
> language. Can I have this hook in VB or C++ and then call my C#
> function? Anone have any suggestions for interacting in between
> managed and unmanaged code when the unmanaged code needs to trigger a
> C# method?
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Andy
>
>