I’m trying to develop an application in Delphi XE2 that will be able to read and alter object properties between different applications.
Currently, our only target applications are one developed in Delphi XE, to which I have the source code, and one done in VB6, which we have no source or information.
Main objects we are looking for are Labels and Edits, but ideally I’d need to almost design an object viewer, listing every object as well as their properties, being able to read and alter those at will, and call methods.
I am at a loss on how to do so, best I got was being able to read some label captions, based on reading the buffer on the VB application and working directly with memory allocations, but even that had it’s limitations, since it only worked in WinXP, not Windows 7 like intended.
What would be the best way to accomplish what I want? I am willing to code in a different language if it would be best.
Edit: After doing some more research, I discovered TestComplete, and within it, it has an object viewer that basically does the listing/modifying of objects and their properties.
Being so that the goal is not to use a third software party to do this, it is clear that this is doable, but I am lost as to how. MSAA/IAutomation worked to an extent, but neither could really list me all objects.
Here are a couple of screens to show briefly how it works (With the 3rd Party VB application, redacted parts for security):
Additionally to WinAPI, you can use Microsoft Active Accessibility to get information from other window. Here is small example: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2004/04/23/118893.aspx and delphi code: http://www.transl-gunsmoker.ru/2009/08/blog-post.html