Back at trying to read the impossible window..

[jerwah]

So my idea of using analysis.wbt program to create "fingerprints" of the various windows inside the ancient program I'm trying to interact with, kind of worked, but I still have about a dozen or so screens which analysis.wbt produces 100% identical results for, yet have completely different contents, and for most of them I can't seem to "read" anything out of them that is useful for me to know which screen I'm on.

For the record, I'm trying to automate keying of data into this ancient system. So it's critical I know "where" I am before issuing SendKeys blindly as it can have some pretty disastrous results if I'm not where I think I am.

Look for an outside the box ideas to "read" the screen, as opposed to the ususal, window interrogation/properties stuff.  I've got no issues getting focus, but it's making sure I know exactly where I am has been the problem.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated, but the normal solutions just won't work here.


Thanks again

[td]

If the application is the same one that you previously posted an analysis dump for then the windows are all identifiable based on a combination of their hierarchical relationship to each other and their id.   So it is theoretically possible to determine the identity and obtaining a handle to of each window without knowing its text.

Of course it would be a long and tedious process to figure out and would be prone to problems. This is particularly true if window ids or window relationships change from run to run.

Good luck.

[kdmoyers]

As Tony's says,  as long as they are standard Windows windows (not for example, Java windows) you can examine a analysis.wbt output to identify the window hierarchy and id numbers and basically puzzle it all out.

But boy does this get hard.  Especially when the hierarchy changes as the program runs.  and every new release of the program changes the numbers. it aint pretty. 

I spent years in continuous battle with a certain big-market parcel manifest program.  Finally I sidestepped the whole thing by interacting at the database level, and I'm much happier.

-Kirby