CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonwindowsmouse
e271p314
e271p314

Reputation: 4039

In python, on windows, how to wait until mouse moves?

I'm developing a screen capture tool, this tools aims to help software developers understand how users ended up crashing the application. The idea is to start screen capture once the mouse starts moving and stop it after 5 minutes the mouse didn't move. screen capture works fine through subprocess with ffmpeg, the only remaining problem (except for the application crashes) is to start and stop the screen capture. How can I do this? ideally it would work with condition variable but even a loop which tests if the mouse moved in the last second would do. Is there any chance python supports something like OnMouseMove()?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 3165

Answers (3)

e271p314
e271p314

Reputation: 4039

After considering my alternatives I think this the right way to handle my problem, please note I've updated the code to support remote desktop disconnect by checking if the GetCursorPos() throws an exception, also please note that when closing the remote desktop ffmpeg outputs

[dshow @ ] real-time buffer full! frame dropped!

But the output file looks fine to me. This script was tested on Windows server 2012

# http://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/
# http://www.videohelp.com/tools/UScreenCapture
# http://sourceforge.net/projects/pywin32/files/pywin32/

import time, win32api, threading, subprocess, datetime, string, winerror

StopRecordingTimeout = 10

def captureFunction():
    pos = None
    proc = None
    counter = 0
    while True:
        time.sleep(1)
        exceptFlag = False
        try:
            newPos = win32api.GetCursorPos()
            if pos == None:
                pos = newPos
        except Exception as e:
            if e[0] == winerror.ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED:
                exceptFlag = True
        if newPos != pos and proc != None:
            # mouse moved and we are recording already so just make sure the time out counter is zero
            counter = 0
        elif newPos != pos and proc == None:
            # mouse moved and recording didn't start already
            fileName = filter(lambda x : x in string.digits, str(datetime.datetime.now()))
            fileName = 'output' + fileName + '.flv'
            print 'start recording to ' + fileName
            proc = subprocess.Popen('ffmpeg -f dshow -i video=UScreenCapture ' + fileName)
        elif proc != None and (newPos == pos or exceptFlag):
            # mouse didn't moved and recording already started
            if counter < StopRecordingTimeout and not exceptFlag:
                counter = counter + 1
                print 'stop recording in ' + str(StopRecordingTimeout - counter) + ' seconds'
            elif exceptFlag or counter >= StopRecordingTimeout:
                print 'stop recording'
                proc.terminate()
                proc = None
                counter = 0
        pos = newPos

print 'start'
captureThread = threading.Thread(target = captureFunction)
captureThread.start()
captureThread.join()
print 'end'

Upvotes: 2

user3041855
user3041855

Reputation:

A loop + pywin32, like this:

import win32api
from time import sleep

count = 0
savedpos = win32api.GetCursorPos()
while(True):
    if count>20*5: # break after 5sec
        break

    curpos = win32api.GetCursorPos()
    if savedpos != curpos:
        savedpos = curpos
        print "moved to " + str(savedpos)

    sleep(0.05)
    count +=1

Upvotes: 4

Steve Barnes
Steve Barnes

Reputation: 28405

wxPython gives you access to a whole set of OnMouse events that you can bind to.

Upvotes: 3

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