Question

I have an application that needs to introspect running third-party .NET applications – for which I have no source. I need to be able to read the on-screen forms, controls and their on-screen relative positions.

What libraries or technologies (Microsoft or otherwise) are available?

What I need:

• To perform this programmatically (i.e. I’m not interested in a Visual Studio plugin) from an application that I will write
• To support all (or as many as possible) CLR applications
• To be able to find all open screens/forms
• For a given screen/form, discover all the controls

• For a control, read properties such as:

  • It’s on-screen value (i.e. the text in an input field),
  • Font size, colour and style,
  • Location on the form
  • Any label
  • The parent panel/group for the control

• Detect where the screen focus is

What I don’t need (but would except as extra value):

• To discover other objects or recover the run-time object graph
• To decompile or otherwise obtain the third-party source
• Discover the class hierarchy of the application
• Drill into other aspects of the application’s runtime state
• To introspect native C++ applications
• To introspect an application from another computer/VM.

Answer 1

It sounds like you’re trying to automate other programs. Well, the good news is that Microsoft have produced an entire library for UI Automation:

Microsoft UI Automation is the new accessibility framework for Microsoft Windows. It addresses the needs of assistive technology products and automated test frameworks by providing programmatic access to information about the user interface (UI). In addition, UI Automation enables control and application developers to make their products accessible.