CODEWITHSUNDEEP
macoscocoacore-graphicsnswindowapp-inspection
Suyash Patel
Suyash Patel

Reputation: 190

how to traverse window/view hierarchy of other application in macOS?

I am trying to figure out how to get (read only) entire window/view hierarchy of any application. I get list of all open windows using CGWindowListCopyWindowInfo. It also returns window number (kCGWindowNumber). It also shows sharing status of root window by kCGWindowSharingState = 1;. Now, I want to check that a particular window/view present in hierarchy of that application. I got kCGWindowNumber which is root window of application.

Upvotes: 7

Views: 1945

Answers (2)

natevw
natevw

Reputation: 17912

This is now possible via the View Debugging features of Xcode. To use this:

  1. Start the target app running as you normally would
  2. Launch Xcode, and open a project window (any project, might need to be OS X instead of iOS)
  3. Use the Debug > Attach To Process menu once it loads to select your target app
  4. Now click the little View Debugging button View Debugging button or use the menu again: Debug > View Debugging > Capture View Hierarchy

This should show you a sort of "exploded" view of the app's views as well as a tree of their relationships in Xcode's left pane.

Upvotes: 6

Mark Bessey
Mark Bessey

Reputation: 19782

You really can't do this through Core Graphics, since the view hierarchy is entirely a Cocoa concept. You can do this through the Cocoa Scripting Bridge, possibly in combination with the GUI Automation support for Accessibility (here's example code for that).

Upvotes: 2

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