Will a kind soul help to provide a vba solution to press a button (e.g 3) in Microsoft calculator without using sendkeys?

[API_newnoob]

Hi all,



Will a kind soul help to provide a vba solution to press a button (e.g 3) in Microsoft calculator without using sendkeys?

 

[John_w]

Dear Mr Fluff,

Thank you for your kind reminder. As a new member, I really appreciate it. Here is the link i have cross posted.

VBA program to press a button (e.g 3) in microsoft calculator without using sendkeys - OzGrid Free Excel/VBA Help Forum

[xpost] [/xpost] Hi all, Will a kind soul help to provide a vba solution to press a button (e.g 3) in Microsoft calculator without using sendkeys?

www.ozgrid.com

Please post links to ALL your cross-posts.

 

[API_newnoob]

Dear @Jaafar Tribak ,

Thank you for your patience and time, I am currently using Windows 7 Home premium, therefore my view is the classic view. I am also currently using spy++.

I realize that before i can get to the buttons, there are 2 windows class name that are duplicates ((#32770 (Dialog)) and they do not have a control ID.

I believe i have to get to the second #32770 (Dialog) which is the correct window to the buttons.

Is my assumption correct and if my assumption is correct, can you show or guide me to a solution to let the program understand that I would like to select the second #32770 (Dialog) ?

 

[Macropod]

Perhaps you could explain what you're trying to do with the Calculator that can't be done in VBA without it?

 

[API_newnoob]

Dear Paul,

VBA definitely can do what the calculator does, however, i am trying to learn to automate using API.

The external program i chose to use is calculator since all of us who utilizes Microsoft would have a calculator.

I do understand that i can use Sendkeys to fulfill the purpose of automation, however the aim is to learn to automate using API.

In my humble opinion that could be wrong, what i am trying to figure out would be crucial if i were to utilize VBA to control other programs because other programs might have the same issues just like calculator.

Therefore, instead of finding solutions to go around the problem, i hope to tackle the problem head on and learn, so that i can utilize the knowledge to automate external programs in future.

Below is the initial tutorial that i used.

 

[Macropod]

You might start here: Launch CALC.EXE and retrieve value using VB6 and Is it possible to automate windows calculator using excel VBA?
Even the first link ultimately needs Sendkeys, though. AFAIK the windows calculator doesn't have an API, so you can't program it the way you can with applications like Excel. AutoIt can at least work through the UI.

 

[Jaafar Tribak]

Dear @Jaafar Tribak ,

Thank you for your patience and time, I am currently using Windows 7 Home premium, therefore my view is the classic view. I am also currently using spy++.

I realize that before i can get to the buttons, there are 2 windows class name that are duplicates ((#32770 (Dialog)) and they do not have a control ID.

I believe i have to get to the second #32770 (Dialog) which is the correct window to the buttons.

Is my assumption correct and if my assumption is correct, can you show or guide me to a solution to let the program understand that I would like to select the second #32770 (Dialog) ?

Right click each Button module showing in your spy tool and choose Properties from the right-cick menu. Under the General tab you will find the specific control ID for the button in HEX format.

If you can post back with each control and its corresponding ID, we can take this further.

EDIT:
Do the same with each STATIC control

 

[API_newnoob]

Dear @Jaafar Tribak ,

Thank you for the reply, here is one of the button image. The number is 7 on the calculator. The control ID ends with 89.

 

[API_newnoob]

Also, i done up a macro that is able to work, however, i am unhappy because this is a very "stupid" and inefficient way of doing it.

What i did was to go down the windows manually.

````
main_view = FindWindowEx(hwindow2, 0&, "Calcframe", vbNullString) 'whole calculator view
sub_view = FindWindowEx(main_view, 0&, "#32770", vbNullString) ' 1st 32770 (Dialog)
sub_view2 = FindWindowEx(main_view, sub_view, "#32770", vbNullString) '2nd 32770 (Dialog)
button1 = FindWindowEx(sub_view2, 0&, "Button", vbNullString) 'MC button on calculator
button2 = FindWindowEx(sub_view2, button1, "Button", vbNullString) ' Backspace button on calculator
button3 = FindWindowEx(sub_view2, button2, "Button", vbNullString) 'number button 7 on calculator
button4 = FindWindowEx(sub_view2, button3, "Button", vbNullString) 'number button 4 on calculator
button5 = FindWindowEx(sub_view2, button4, "Button", vbNullString) 'number button 1 on calculator
button6 = FindWindowEx(sub_view2, button5, "Button", vbNullString) 'number button 0 on calculator
button7 = FindWindowEx(sub_view2, button6, "Button", vbNullString) 'MR button on calculator
button8 = FindWindowEx(sub_view2, button7, "Button", vbNullString) 'CE button on calculator
button9 = FindWindowEx(sub_view2, button8, "Button", vbNullString) 'number button 8 on calculator
button10 = FindWindowEx(sub_view2, button9, "Button", vbNullString) 'number button 5 on calculator
button11 = FindWindowEx(sub_view2, button10, "Button", vbNullString) 'number button 2 on calculator
button12 = FindWindowEx(sub_view2, button11, "Button", vbNullString) 'MS button on calculator
button13 = FindWindowEx(sub_view2, button12, "Button", vbNullString) 'C button on calculator
button14 = FindWindowEx(sub_view2, button13, "Button", vbNullString) 'number 9 button on calculator
button15 = FindWindowEx(sub_view2, button14, "Button", vbNullString) 'number 6 button on calculator
button16 = FindWindowEx(sub_view2, button15, "Button", vbNullString) 'number 3 button on calculator
button17 = FindWindowEx(sub_view2, button16, "Button", vbNullString) '. button on calculator
button18 = FindWindowEx(sub_view2, button17, "Button", vbNullString) 'M+ button on calculator
button19 = FindWindowEx(sub_view2, button18, "Button", vbNullString) '+_ button on calculator
button20 = FindWindowEx(sub_view2, button19, "Button", vbNullString) '/ button on calculator
button21 = FindWindowEx(sub_view2, button20, "Button", vbNullString) '* button on calculator
button22 = FindWindowEx(sub_view2, button21, "Button", vbNullString) '- button on calculator
button23 = FindWindowEx(sub_view2, button22, "Button", vbNullString) '+ button on calculator
button24 = FindWindowEx(sub_view2, button23, "Button", vbNullString) 'M- button on calculator
button25 = FindWindowEx(sub_view2, button24, "Button", vbNullString) 'sqaure root button on calculator
button26 = FindWindowEx(sub_view2, button25, "Button", vbNullString) '% button on calculator
button27 = FindWindowEx(sub_view2, button26, "Button", vbNullString) '1/X button on calculator
button28 = FindWindowEx(sub_view2, button27, "Button", vbNullString) '= button on calculator

'Calculate 74+21=95
Call SendMessage(button3, BM_CLICK, 0, ByVal0&) 'click button 7 on calculator
Call SendMessage(button4, BM_CLICK, 0, ByVal0&) 'click button 4 on calculator
Call SendMessage(button23, BM_CLICK, 0, ByVal0&) 'click + on calculator
Call SendMessage(button11, BM_CLICK, 0, ByVal0&) 'click button 2 on calculator
Call SendMessage(button5, BM_CLICK, 0, ByVal0&) 'click button 1 on calculator
Call SendMessage(button28, BM_CLICK, 0, ByVal0&) 'click = on calculator
````

As you can see, although this works, there are a lots of feedbacks.
1) This will only work in the normal view, if you change it to programmer or scientific view. It should not work.
2) What if there are 1000 or more buttons ? (Write a program to loop to write the lines or use excel to concatenate to write the lines???)
3) How do we identify each button after writing the code ? (Manually use spy++ to highlight every window to know which button it is???)

I am sure that the developers of Microsoft saw this issue ages back and would have came up with a solution. Therefore, if anyone knows the legit "correct" way of doing it. Any help is kindly and deeply appreciated and i am sure many others would be able to use this thread to start learning.

Dear @Jaafar Tribak ,

The control ID does not seem to change with the view and therefore programming it with Control ID seems to be the legit "correct" way.

Do you have an example of how to write a code with a control ID so i can experiment further?

 

[Jaafar Tribak]

As you say, the Dialog control IDs are not supposed to change as they are determined by the dialog template. On the other hand, window handles (hwnd) are dynamic window IDs given by the OS and change every time the window is created.

In addition to the FindWindow and FindWindowEx API functions, there are many other functions you can use to retrieve window handles depending on the situation.

Lookup the documentation for the following API functions:
EnumWindows,EnumChildWindows,EnumThreadWindows,GetWindow,GetParent,GetAncestor,GetActiveWindow,GetFocus,GetForeGroundWindow,GetLastActivePopUp,WindowFromPoint etc

Windows (Windows and Messages) - Win32 apps

For Dialog controls lookup the GetDlgItem and GetDlgCtrlID functions.

 

[API_newnoob]

Dear @Jaafar Tribak ,

Thank you for your patience and time for someone who does not have a background in IT, i really appreciate it.

I tried going through the link that you gave but unfortunately, i guess i am not smart enough to decipher what it means or how to use it.

I tried for hours with different ways of using the functions you gave until VBA crashed and my work is gone.

Will you be able to give me a code to show me how to activate button 7 on the calculator based on the Control ID from spy++?