Read the caption text from a programs dialog box

There is more that one way to do that. For example, you can use a Windows API call to enumerate all top-level windows (EnumWindows), find the window that contains the previously known caption (GetWindowText), find the child of this window (EnumChildWindows), and then read the window text (GetWindowText).

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  Nayer Naguib

Any example?

Or something to get started with...?

Here is an example using C#. The example uses FindWindow to locate an app and then closes the associated Window. Once you the dialog, instead of closing it, you can use GetWindowText.

http://www.codeproject.com/csharp/cskillapp.asp project with same C# code that demonstrates using FindWindow.

http://www.csharphelp.com/archives2/archive301.html another example demonstrating the GetWindowText function

Looks like EnumChildWindows does not enumerate dialog boxes, and we do not also need EnumWindows.

The example below will display a message box containing the title of the warning dialog box that is displayed when you want to exit Notepad without saving text.

Notes:

1. The dialog box should be already open when the code runs.
2. You need to replace "Untitled - Notepad" with the caption of the parent window.

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using System;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

namespace TextCapture
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        [DllImport("user32.dll")]
        public static extern int FindWindow(string lpClassName, string lpWindowName);
        [DllImport("user32.dll")]
        public static extern int GetWindow(int handle, int cmd);
        [DllImport("User32.Dll")]
        public static extern void GetWindowText(int h, StringBuilder s, int nMaxCount);

        const int GW_HWNDPREV = 3;

        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            int handle = FindWindow(null, "Untitled - Notepad");
            int childHandle = GetWindow(handle, GW_HWNDPREV);
            StringBuilder title = new StringBuilder(256);
            string text = "";
            GetWindowText(childHandle, title, 256);
            text = title.ToString().Trim();
            MessageBox.Show("Title of dialog box: " + text);
        }
    }
}

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  Nayer Naguib

Maybe I'm not clear enough, read the message (the caption from a label inside the DialogBox, not the DialogBox title).. I want to be able to read the message from the DialogBox (Just like the MessageBox) the message box will show some crucial data to me in this message...

Anyway thanks for your answers!...

The following piece of code will capture and display the text of every control on the dialog box window. You will need to do some changes to the code in order to have the application only process the required label text.

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using System;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

namespace TextCapture
{
      public partial class Form1 : Form
      {
            [DllImport("user32.dll")]
            public static extern int FindWindow(string lpClassName, string lpWindowName);
            [DllImport("user32.dll")]
            public static extern int GetWindow(int handle, int cmd);
            [DllImport("User32.Dll")]
            public static extern void GetWindowText(int h, StringBuilder s, int nMaxCount);
            [DllImport("User32.dll")]
            public static extern Boolean EnumChildWindows(int hWndParent, Delegate lpEnumFunc, int lParam);

            const int GW_HWNDPREV = 3;

            public delegate void Callback(int hWnd,int lParam);

            public Form1()
            {
                  InitializeComponent();
            }

            private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
            {
                  int handle = FindWindow(null, "Untitled - Notepad");
                  int childHandle = GetWindow(handle, GW_HWNDPREV);
                  Callback myCallBack = new Callback(GetMessage);
                  EnumChildWindows(childHandle, myCallBack, 0);
            }

            public void GetMessage(int hWnd, int lParam)
            {
                  StringBuilder contents = new StringBuilder(256);
                  string txt="";
                  GetWindowText(hWnd, contents, 256);
                  txt = contents.ToString().Trim();
                  MessageBox.Show("Text shown on control: "+ txt);
            }
      }
}

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  Nayer Naguib

The last code you have provided me it just doesn't do anything, even with the Notepad example, but anyway thanks.

Forced accept.

Computer101
EE Admin