Comment On Pragmatically Registering

Alex Papadimoulis:

Even if you're pretty certain that your way isn't the best way, sometimes it's just easier to go with what you know instead of struggling with something new. I'm pretty sure that's what the author of today's code (found in the Sidebar) was thinking. He knew that to register a OCX library, you click the Start Button, then press R (for Run), then type in -- well, you get the idea.

Thankfully, "run" is the only thing in the Start menu that could possibly start with an "R"... [8-)]

Alex Papadimoulis:

Screen.Height / 15 - 10

Anyone want to comment on what this does? is he assuming that the start menu height is 1/15th of the screen height, and that he can just subtract 10 to land in the middle? What if your screen is really big?

1. Use Windows API calls to move the mouse to the taskbar


2. (hope that there's nothing but blank taskbar under the mouse)


3. Use Windows API calls to right click


4. Use Windows API calls to move the mouse up to "Show the Desktop"


5. (hope that the user is running XP -- earlier versions said something like "Minimize All Windows")


6. Use Windows API calls to release the mouse


7. Use Windows API calls to move the mouse to the default location for "My Computer"


8. (hope that the user has not moved any desktop icons)


9. ...... you get the picture .....
   
   

Anonymous:

Thankfully, "run" is the only thing in the Start menu that could possibly start with an "R"... [8-)]

hell yeah!

i'm reminded of old windows and record macro thinggy ... that caused me all kinds of problems

Kippesoep:

Om my God! That is horrendous. I wonder what it would do on my system where the taskbar is at the top of the screen. Can't be good...

Anonymous:

Thankfully, "run" is the only thing in the Start menu that could possibly start with an "R"... [8-)]

Alex Papadimoulis:

  SetCursorPos 32, Screen.Height / 15 - 10

  mouse_event MOUSEEVENTF_ABSOLUTE, 32, Screen.Height / 15 - 10, 1, 1

  mouse_event MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTDOWN, 32, Screen.Height / 15 - 10, 1, 1

  mouse_event MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTUP, 32, Screen.Height / 15 - 10, 1, 1

Alright, I had to look into this as I just couldn't figure out what Screen.Height / 15 - 10 was suppose to do. Screen.Height returns the height of the screen measured in twips. After trying to figure out how this factored in, I decided to take my screen height in twips (11520) and divide it by my screen height as measured by the control panel display applet in pixels (768) and ... you guessed it ... the answer if 15. The author was apparantly trying to convert from twips to screen coordinates. I really don't see how this calculation helps, however, as the API does not take the measurement in pixels, but in normalized absolute coordinates:

 "dx and dy contain normalized absolute coordinates between 0 and 65,535. The event procedure maps these coordinates onto the display surface. Coordinate (0,0) maps onto the upper-left corner of the display surface, (65535,65535) maps onto the lower-right corner" (from the MSDN documentation).

Also, he passes in a value of 1 for the parameter dwData, which only applies for wheel data or X buttons. To quote the documentation:

Anonymous:

I'm not sure if people are joking or not with some of the responses to
this WTF.  Their is no good way to do this using screen
geometry.

scooter:

Anonymous:

I'm not sure if people are joking or not with some of the responses to
this WTF.  Their is no good way to do this using screen
geometry.

You obviously have no sense of adventure...  Real Windows UI programmers don't rely on those flaky events like Button.Click(). 
If you are at all serious about quality programs, capture the Click
event and use the Windows SendKey() method to hop the tab order on your
form until you get to the right button.  Then you can use
SendKey() to send "Return"....

ferrengi:

Wow,
If you can send me the executable for this "program", I would love to run it on my machine and watch this monstrosity in action.

You would let that run on your machine?!!  You, sir, are a brave man.  I salute you.

Gene Wirchenko:

Anonymous:

Thankfully, "run" is the only thing in the Start menu that could possibly start with an "R"... [8-)]

I once had a finger slip on one command and so typed "ruin" for "run".

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

Anonymous:

The more I read on this site the more I am convinced that I should get out of the programming business. I simply don't want to be associated with people who do such things and call themself "programmers".

Used car salesman seems like a much more honest profession than programming to me now. Any job offers?

http://jobsearch.monster.com/jobsearch.asp?q=used+car+sales&fn=&lid=&re=104&cy=us

Anonymous:

The more I read on this site the more I am convinced that I should get out of the programming business. I simply don't want to be associated with people who do such things and call themself "programmers".

Used car salesman seems like a much more honest profession than programming to me now. Any job offers?

Richard Nixon:

Gene Wirchenko:

Anonymous:

Thankfully, "run" is the only thing in the Start menu that could possibly start with an "R"... [8-)]

I once had a finger slip on one command and so typed "ruin" for "run".

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

Wow, that's really fascinating. Any other stories about typos you've made in the past? Please, enthrall and entertain us.

Sincerely,
Richard Nixon

A classic "WTF" in the true spirit of what this site is all about.

Thanks, Alex !!

GoatCheez:

I think the true problem lies in our education system. People are graduating college with computer science degrees who don't C from C#, or Java from JavaScript. Yet, they still manage to pass all of their programming classes. I really think it has to do with some college requiring professors to pass X amount of students. If a professor gets 100 kids who can't program, and never learn how to, he still has to pass some or the administrators will thing he or she cannot teach programming. If it were up to me, I would have a very strict grading structure, and am sure that most of the time only one or two people would just barely pass a test in a group of 20. I have had to tutor CS students, and some of them just cannot be tought how to program. These people still manage to get their degrees. This is THE reason why I feel that CS degrees are completely useless.

scooter:

What happens when a user moves their taskbar to the right hand side of the screen?



I would suggest that this programmer make sweeps across the screen,
examining 20x20 px squares looking for a portion of the word
"Start".  This would be a much more robust solution for locating
the start menu than just assuming that Screen.Height / 15 - 10 will work.

Quinnum:

scooter:

What happens when a user moves their taskbar to the right hand side of the screen?



I would suggest that this programmer make sweeps across the screen,
examining 20x20 px squares looking for a portion of the word
"Start".  This would be a much more robust solution for locating
the start menu than just assuming that Screen.Height / 15 - 10 will work.

Arrgh but what about if 'auto-hide' is enabled ???

Don't laugh. I have a driver install program that actually has to do that. It installs a device driver for some custom hardware on a 'headless' box (no keyboard, mouse, or monitor). In our case, there is no user to dismiss the message boxes for us.

Quinnum:

Arrgh but what about if 'auto-hide' is enabled ???

That was going to be my question.  Since you've asked it, with toungue firmly implanted in my cheek, I submit:

Declare Function ScreenShout Lib "user32" Alias "ScreenShout" (ByVal SayWhat As String) As Long

lngRC = ScreenShout("Ollie, Ollie, Oxen Free")

If lngRC <> 0 Then   'We have unhidden the task bar
   ...   'click the task bar in one of the four quadrants
Else
   lngRC = ScreenShout("Come out. Come out, wherever you are")
   If lngRC <> 0 Then   'We have unhidden the task bar
   ...   'click the task bar in one of the four quadrants

   Else
      ...   'keep shouting in different languages
   End If

End If 

====================

Note: Be sure to programmatically turn up the speakers and unmute them before calling the ScreenShout API.

What?!?  The ScreenShout API isn't one of the special 'hidden' APIs that Microsoft uses to maintain their Office marketshare dominance?

sao:

i once typed 'teh' instead of 'the'.

I used to know a guy who's last name was Teh.  The fun he had using Word...