dll mousehook or journaling thru my own application?

it's actually both languages :)

anyway, the code seems to work fine under winxp, although a lot of posts in the link you send me tell that it doesn't work on xp or 2000. let me play with it for a bit.
 now what do you suggest, a full dll hook or a far simpler journaling?

The posts related badfunction are old...
The first version if that tip was written for Win98.
In win2k/xp, the DLL name (in the declaration) must have the extension and this is the cause for that posts.
The hook works in Win98/2k/xp without problems.

>a full dll hook or a far simpler journaling?

A Global hook must be in a DLL, even a journal hook.
There are two kinds of hook that works without DLL:

Low level Mouse Hook (constant WH_MOUSE_LL) and Low level Keyboard Hook (WH_KEYBOARD_LL)

Huff i press enter...

The rest of the hooks must reside in a DLL (if you want a global system hook) or... you will have extrange efects :)

ok, the example as it is on the link you sent me works ok, the thing is that when i added a bit of code so it will change a few variables when the program clicks the mouse then the whole thing goes nuts.
1st, it's not detecting leftmouse up, only down so when i send a mouse up by code and the dll is not detecting it then the variables are not getting updated. i can;t seem to be able to find why, by the way the same happens when i manually press the left button, it will detect down but not up.
2nd as soon as the form is refreshed or repainted (for exaple when you set it to ontop=true or when you restore it from the tray) then the hook doesn;'t work anymore, at all. my guess is that i need to stop the hook and restart it again.

hello  urif , , The Journal Hook will merge the input queues of the programs, this is not noticible most of the time , but can cause some abnormallities (unusuall things, sometimes in text entry). . . I Used to recommend using the Journal hook, , but now I recommend to ONLY use the journal hook to Record and play back key amd mouse, for a short time, , , in any other mouse or key monitor, you should use a WH_MOUSE hook, or th key hook. . . .

below is some code for a mouse hook, that is in a DLL library, It does not do any of the things that you describe in your comment above, It seems to work for me - -


library GetMouseMove;

uses
  Windows, Messages;

{$R *.RES}

const
MoveMsg: Integer = WM_USER + 814;
UpMsg: Integer = WM_USER + 815;
WheelMsg = WM_USER + 816;
mapName = 'h7y+u2a5pe'; // be sure to change this to you own UNIQUE map file name

var
pForm: PDWORD = nil;
hForm: THandle = 0;
hMemFile: THandle = 0;
hHook: THandle = 0;
Hooked: Boolean = False;

function HookProc(Code, wParam: Integer; var MouseStrut: TMOUSEHOOKSTRUCT): Integer; stdcall;
begin
Result := CallNextHookEx(0, Code, wParam, Integer(@MouseStrut));
if (hForm <> 0) and (Code = HC_ACTION) then
  if (wParam = WM_MOUSEMOVE) then
    begin
    ScreenToClient(MouseStrut.hwnd, MouseStrut.pt);
    PostMessage(hForm, MoveMsg,MouseStrut.pt.x, MouseStrut.pt.y);
    end else
    if (wParam = WM_LBUTTONUP) then
    PostMessage(hForm, UpMsg,0, 0) else
    if (wParam = WM_MOUSEWHEEL) then
    PostMessage(hForm, WheelMsg,MouseStrut.dwExtraInfo, 0);
end;


function StartHook(formHnd: HWND) : Boolean; export;
begin
Result := False;
if Hooked then
  begin
  Result := True;
  Exit;
  end;

if not IsWindow(formHnd) then Exit;

hHook := SetWindowsHookEx(WH_MOUSE, @HookProc, hInstance, 0);
if hHook <> 0 then
  begin
  hMemFile := CreateFileMapping($FFFFFFFF, nil,PAGE_READWRITE,0,
              SizeOf(Integer), mapName);
  pForm := MapViewOfFile(hMemFile, FILE_MAP_WRITE, 0, 0, 0);
  if pForm = nil then
    begin
    CloseHandle(hMemFile);
    UnhookWindowsHookEx(hHook);
    end else
    begin
    hForm := formHnd;
    pForm^ := formHnd;
    Hooked := True;
    Result := True;
    end;
  end;
end;

function StopHook: Boolean; export;
begin
if pForm <> nil then
  begin
  UnmapViewOfFile(pForm);
  CloseHandle(hMemFile);
  pForm := nil;
  hForm := 0;
  end;
if Hooked then
  Result := UnhookWindowsHookEx(hHook) else
  Result := True;
if not Result then Exit;
Hooked := False;
hHook := 0;
end;

procedure StartUp;
begin
hMemFile := OpenFileMapping(FILE_MAP_WRITE, False, mapName);
if hMemFile <> 0 then
  pForm := MapViewOfFile(hMemFile, FILE_MAP_WRITE, 0, 0, 0);
if pForm <> nil then
  hForm := pForm^;
end;

procedure EntryProc(dwReason : DWORD);
begin
if (dwReason = Dll_Process_Detach) then
  begin
  if Hooked then UnhookWindowsHookEx(hHook);
  if pForm <> nil then
    UnmapViewOfFile(pForm);
  pForm := nil;
  CloseHandle(hMemFile);
  hMemfile := 0;
  end;
end;

exports
  StartHook,
  StopHook;

begin
StartUp;
DLLProc := @EntryProc;
end.

some code in the Form1 -


  private
    { Private declarations }
    MouseTravel: Int64;
    MouseClick: Int64;
    WheelTurn: Int64;
    MousePos: TPoint;
    procedure MoveMsg(var Message: TMessage); message WM_USER + 814;
    procedure UpMsg(var Message: TMessage); message WM_USER + 815;
    procedure WheelMsg(var Message: TMessage); message WM_USER + 816;



procedure TForm1.MoveMsg(var Message: TMessage);
begin
if MousePos.x <> -200000 then
MouseTravel := MouseTravel+ Round(Sqrt(SumOfSquares([abs(Message.LParam-MousePos.y),
      abs(Message.WParam-MousePos.x)])));

MousePos.x := Message.WParam;
MousePos.y := Message.LParam;
Label5.Caption := IntToStr(MouseTravel);
end;

procedure TForm1.UpMsg(var Message: TMessage);
begin
Inc(MouseClick);
Label6.Caption := 'Clicks '+IntToStr(MouseClick);
end;

procedure TForm1.WheelMsg(var Message: TMessage);
begin
Inc(WheelTurn, (Message.WParam div 300000000));
Label7.Caption := 'Wheel '+IntToStr(WheelTurn);
end;


procedure TForm1.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
begin
MousePos.x := -200000;
MouseTravel := 0;
MouseClick:=0;
WheelTurn:=0;
end;


procedure TForm1.sbut_MouseMoveHookClick(Sender: TObject);
var
hLibMM: THandle;
StartHook1: function(formHnd: THandle): Boolean;
begin
hLibMM := LoadLibrary('GetMouseMove.dll');
if hLibMM = 0 then
  begin
  Showmessage('ERROR - DLL did NOT load');
  Exit;
  end;
@StartHook1 := GetProcAddress(hLibMM, 'StartHook');
if @StartHook1 = nil then
  begin
  Showmessage('ERROR - StartHook1 is NIL');
  Exit;
  end;
if not StartHook1(Handle) then
  begin
  Showmessage('ERROR - Mouse Hook is Not Started');
  FreeLibrary(hLibMM);
  end;
end;

and I will add that a DLL is loaded into every running process, that has a window in the system Message queue, so  variables in one your DLLs will NOT be set from a DLL in a diffent process, if you need any Global DLL variables, you will need to add them to the Map File,

ok, out of the box it seems to work, the problem here is that the function

function HookProc(Code, wParam: Integer; var MouseStrut: TMOUSEHOOKSTRUCT): Integer; stdcall;
begin
Result := CallNextHookEx(0, Code, wParam, Integer(@MouseStrut));
if (hForm <> 0) and (Code = HC_ACTION) then
  if (wParam = WM_MOUSEMOVE) then
    begin
    ScreenToClient(MouseStrut.hwnd, MouseStrut.pt);
    PostMessage(hForm, MoveMsg,MouseStrut.pt.x, MouseStrut.pt.y);
    end else
    if (wParam = WM_LBUTTONUP) then
    PostMessage(hForm, UpMsg,0, 0) else
    if (wParam = WM_MOUSEWHEEL) then
    PostMessage(hForm, WheelMsg,MouseStrut.dwExtraInfo, 0);
end;

gets me some errors whenever i try to add some other wParams to watch.
as i said, i need to monitor(see the journal i created) leftmousedown and up, rightmousedown and up, doubleclick, mousemove and if mouse is over the caption area.
trying to customize the dll to be a general hook is not that easy as it seems.