CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#javawindowscoordinatesbounds
kevin
kevin

Reputation: 45

Get the bounds of any window on the desktop in Screen Coordinates, is it possible?

I am searching for a way to get the screen coordinate bounds of any arbitrary window that may be displayed on the desktop at any time on a Windows machine. For instance, say you have a pdf document open in adobe on the desktop, I'd like to be able to get the coordinates/bounds of that arbitrary window with some written program, which language is used is not important.

My specific question: Is the above possible?

What I've done so far is simply get the screen position of the mouse in Java using the PointerInfo class, specifically the getPointerInfo() method. (API here: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/awt/PointerInfo.html). Again, all I've done is find out where the mouse is in screen coordinates, this is not directly related to my problem, but I thought it was a good place to start.

I'm not looking for someone to give me a code snippet of how this is done, simply acknowledgement that it can be done and perhaps a link to an API or class documentation to help out. Again, I'm not looking for a solution in any particular language.

Thank you for your time, -Kevin

EDIT: I've posted this in c# as it seems this may be the best language for this problem.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1292

Answers (3)

Mike Nakis
Mike Nakis

Reputation: 61993

Yes, of course it is possible. (And under windows the best language to use for this job is C#.)

There may be some way to do that by using only dotnet objects and invoking only dotnet functions, but I do not know of any such method.

The way that I know involves pinvoke, which is the mechanism through which managed code in dotnet can call unmanaged code in the native windows dlls.

Look at the WindowFromPoint function: http://www.pinvoke.net/default.aspx/user32.windowfrompoint

And once you have found the window, look at the GetWindowRect function: http://www.pinvoke.net/default.aspx/user32.getwindowrect

Upvotes: 2

Andrew Thompson
Andrew Thompson

Reputation: 168825

Is the end user motivated enough to help? If so it is easy.

  1. Get a screenshot of the entire screen.
  2. Show it to the user in an image icon -> label -> scroll-pane -> frame.
  3. Add a mouse listener to the label.
  4. Ask the user to select a rectangular section of the label.
  5. Use the begin/end points of the mouse drag as corners of the rectangle.

Of course, there are some tweaks can be done. Offer expanded views of the boundary corners, offer ways to adjust each corner pixel by pixel.. If pursuing this strategy, you might start with this code which is designed to select a point on screen.

Upvotes: 0

Francis Upton IV
Francis Upton IV

Reputation: 19443

Look at this Javadoc for Window (Java AWT). It seems that it makes some attempt to do it, but it cannot guarantee.

Upvotes: 0

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