Listening to another window resize events in C#

Question

I am implementing a small application (observer) that needs to \"attach\" itself to the bottom of another window (observed). The latter is not a window inside the applicatio

Answer 1

Expanding on Chris Taylor's answer: Instead of doing the native interop yourself, you can use ManagedWinApi, which contains a Hook class.

EDIT: To use ManagedWinApi. Somewhere in your code:

Hook MyHook = new Hook(HookType.WH_CALLWNDPROC, false, false);
MyHook.Callback += MyHookCallback;
MyHook StartHook();

For the callback, reference CallWndProc and CWPSTRUCT:

private static int MyHookCallback(int code, IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam, ref bool callNext)
{
    if (code >= 0)
    {
        // You will need to define the struct
        var message = (CWPSTRUCT)Marshal.PtrToStructure(lParam, typeof(CWPSTRUCT));
        // Do something with the data
    }
    return 0; // Return value is ignored unless you set callNext to false
}

Answer 2

I ran into the same thing in some code I was working with and discovered I couldn't inject a managed .DLL into the process.

Not wanting to write a C++ unmanaged DLL that used SetWindowsHook, I went with a combination of SetWinEventHook, which signals when a window starts and ends a move event and a Timer to poll the window while it's moving to give it the appearance of following the window while it moves.

Here's a (very simplified) version of a class that can do that (just replace the TODO's with code to move the window or raise an event).

public class DockingHelper
{
    private readonly uint m_processId, m_threadId;

    private readonly IntPtr m_target;

    // Needed to prevent the GC from sweeping up our callback
    private readonly WinEventDelegate m_winEventDelegate;
    private IntPtr m_hook;

    private Timer m_timer;

    public DockingHelper(string windowName, string className)
    {
        if (windowName == null && className == null) throw new ArgumentException("Either windowName or className must have a value");

        m_target = FindWindow(className, windowName);
        ThrowOnWin32Error("Failed to get target window");

        m_threadId = GetWindowThreadProcessId(m_target, out m_processId);
        ThrowOnWin32Error("Failed to get process id");

        m_winEventDelegate = WhenWindowMoveStartsOrEnds;
    }

    [DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
    private static extern bool GetWindowRect(IntPtr hwnd, out RECT lpRect);

    [DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
    private static extern bool UnhookWinEvent(IntPtr hWinEventHook);

    [DllImport("user32.dll")]
    private static extern IntPtr SetWinEventHook(uint eventMin, uint eventMax, IntPtr hmodWinEventProc, WinEventDelegate lpfnWinEventProc, uint idProcess, uint idThread, uint dwFlags);

    [DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true, CharSet = CharSet.Auto)]
    private static extern IntPtr FindWindow(string lpClassName, string lpWindowName);

    [DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
    private static extern uint GetWindowThreadProcessId(IntPtr hWnd, out uint lpdwProcessId);

    private void ThrowOnWin32Error(string message)
    {
        int err = Marshal.GetLastWin32Error();
        if (err != 0)
            throw new Win32Exception(err, message);
    }

    private RECT GetWindowLocation()
    {
        RECT loc;
        GetWindowRect(m_target, out loc);
        if (Marshal.GetLastWin32Error() != 0)
        {
            // Do something useful with this to handle if the target window closes, etc.
        }
        return loc;
    }

    public void Subscribe()
    {
        // 10 = window move start, 11 = window move end, 0 = fire out of context
        m_hook = SetWinEventHook(10, 11, m_target, m_winEventDelegate, m_processId, m_threadId, 0);
    }

    private void PollWindowLocation(object state)
    {
        var location = GetWindowLocation();
        // TODO: Reposition your window with the values from location (or fire an event with it attached)
    }

    public void Unsubscribe()
    {
        UnhookWinEvent(m_hook);
    }

    private void WhenWindowMoveStartsOrEnds(IntPtr hWinEventHook, uint eventType, IntPtr hwnd, int idObject, int idChild, uint dwEventThread, uint dwmsEventTime)
    {
        if (hwnd != m_target) // We only want events from our target window, not other windows owned by the thread.
            return;

        if (eventType == 10) // Starts
        {
            m_timer = new Timer(PollWindowLocation, null, 10, Timeout.Infinite);
            // This is always the original position of the window, so we don't need to do anything, yet.
        }
        else if (eventType == 11)
        {
            m_timer.Dispose();
            m_timer = null;
            var location = GetWindowLocation();
            // TODO: Reposition your window with the values from location (or fire an event with it attached)
        }
    }

    [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
    private struct RECT
    {
        public int Left, Top, Right, Bottom;
    }

    private delegate void WinEventDelegate(IntPtr hWinEventHook, uint eventType, IntPtr hwnd, int idObject, int idChild, uint dwEventThread, uint dwmsEventTime);
}

Answer 3

A WH_CALLWNDPROC hook would probably suffice, this will allow you to monitor all messages destined for the window of interest.

Are you asking how to create a global hook using C# or are you happy to create the hook in C++ and then interop with that from .NET? The second option is the route I would go.

Basically off the top of my head, what I would do is the following

1- Create global hook in C, and export functions to InstallHook and UninstallHook, which can be called from your C# app using Interop. InstallHook take an hwnd of the window in your C# application.

2- Have the installed hook function post a custom message to the C# window provided in the call to InstallHook when ever there is a message you are interested in like WM_SIZE in your case.

3- In the C# application your window that receives the posted messages from the hook will override WndProc to handle the custom message.

That is an outline of one approach.

Answer 4

I suggest you use WinEvents:

public delegate void WinEventDelegate(IntPtr hWinEventHook, uint eventType, IntPtr hwnd, int idObject, int idChild, uint dwEventThread, uint dwmsEventTime);

    [DllImport("user32.dll")]
    public static extern IntPtr SetWinEventHook(uint eventMin, uint eventMax, IntPtr hmodWinEventProc, WinEventDelegate lpfnWinEventProc, uint idProcess, uint idThread, uint dwFlags);

See also:event hooks