Question

iI there any way to add a GUI component to an application which is already running?

I.E. Add an extra tab into a third party GUI?

I have a third party application where I need to add an extra tab into the tabbed interface (or even a button to link to a new form).

I can see the UI components in UISpy and Spy++ but Can’t see a way to alter or add them…

Any ideas? Maybe altering the memory?

Update:
The application I have created to wrap around the third party app is .NET but the third party app is written in VB6

Answer 1

I suppose it’s entirely possible with reflection, with the aid of Reflector, assuming it’s not been obfuscated. Explore around the reflected source until you find the class of the form, and the instance of the form that you want to modify, then you can invoke the Controls.Add method, or anything else you need to, with reflection. But unless you know exactly what you’re doing, you could run into some unexpected behavior from the application.