Can Control Panel Applets be targeted??

[Ron]

Hi SteveV,

These Control Panel Applets can be a pain, this is because they aren't real standalone programs so they come up as "rundll" all the time. Some options:

1.
Make sure they are in the applet is in the foreground ( just starting them should do that ) and then use the keyboard routines to send to the foreground window.

2.
Maybe its even possible to use a mouse simulation but this depends wheter the control applet always pops up in the same location on the screen.

3.
This only works if there is only 1 control pannel applet running. Use the Advanced MouseEvent plugin and use coordinates relative to the window to target control that you need.

-Ron



-Ron

[Ron]

On Win2k targeting seems possible as long as there is only 1 applet open, does that work for you ?

-Ron

[Ron]

That keyboard problem is strange, I have seen a crash when you use the non-alternative proc routine with certain characters.

BUT if you can bring it to the foreground, you might have luck using the a mouse click with relative coordinates. for example with the advanced mouse event plugin, i just tried this an it worked.

Make sure you check "invsible tasks" and don't select the "send to first task".
This last option doesn't work, I don't yet know why that is.

Ron

[Ron]

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[SteveV]

I'm trying to have Girder automate switching between settings for 2 different sound cards in the "Sounds and Multimedia" control panel applet (mmsys.cpl).

The MultiGroup needs to do the following:
1.) Execute mmsys.cpl
2.) Click the "Audio" tab
3.) Select the "Sound Playback" combo box
4.) Send a "Home" keystroke (or 4 UP keystrokes) to select the first combobox item.
5.) Send 3 DOWN keystrokes to select the appropriate setting
6.) Click the OK button

Sounds easy enough :)

My first intention was to use captured commands. I can get a captured command to function properly when I'm in Girder's "System wide capturing" window, but when I click the apply button a dialog box pops up with a message that simply reads "RUNDLL32". When I close the dialog box and test my Girder MultiGroup command the Sound and Multimedia applet launches and nothing else happens. I've tried targeting a large variety of items including the child name (Sounds and Multimedia Properties), SysTabControl32, the combobox directly, in short just about anything that has anything to do with this window. All to no avail--I get a "cannot find window" message in Girder's status bar.

On to plan 2--Sending keystrokes. Same problem--I can't target the window.

Any thoughts on what I'm doing wrong? Or for that matter, has anyone had any success with controlling control panel applets with Girder?

Thanks -- Steve

[SteveV]

Hi Ron,

Thanks for the reply. I generally try to avoid "send to foreground task" targeting as things can go wrong pretty quickly when another application "steals" the intended application's focus. Looks like there may not be another way around this however :(

Regards -- Steve

[SteveV]

Yes and no :(.
The parent app is rundll32.exe I can't do anything by attempting to target the parent. Girder's "Target Selector" window shows the child name as "Sounds and Multimedia Properties". If I target the child name I get "cannot find window" messages in status bar.

I can target the applet only if I do the following:

Cut the child name (Sounds and Multimedia Properties) and paste it into the "Target Selector's" name field. This allows me to use the set focus action to pop the window into the foreground but that's it. If I try to send keystrokes using the same target Girder crashes with the following error:

"Girder has caused an error in <unknown>. Girder will now close"

Looks like sending keystrokes to the forground window is the only thing that will work.

I wonder where the applet settings are stored and if there's some other way of setting them without running the sound and multimedia applet.

Regards -- Steve

[Edited by SteveV on 03-20-2001 at 09:24 AM GMT]

[SteveV]

Ron--I tried your suggestions re relative mouse coordinates and it works quite well!

Thanks -- Steve