How to send button down to a button of another WPF Application

Tommy Miller

15y3.3k

I wrote an WPF C# application (called slave application) that have a button. When click on it, it will perform a task.
Now I launch 10 copies of this slave application.
I will like to be able to create another C# application (called master application) with a buttton. When click on this button in the master application , it will as if I have manually clicked on each of the button of the 10 copies of the slave application.

Did anyone have any idea how I can achieve that? Any sample program that demostrates that?

6 Replies

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Sam Hobbs15y ago
Yeah, I don't understand why they have to keep changing things. It would make programming easier if they were to keep doing everything the old-fashioned way.

I am curious about this so I will try to look at this more later. I don't know WPF very well but I assume this is something worth exploring.
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Tommy Miller15y ago
There is no control ID for WPF button. That is a real problem.
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Sam Hobbs15y ago
Usually the best way to click a button is to send a BN_CLICKED message to the parent. To do that you need to have the control's id. Usually it is possible to get the control's id during development (design time) using Spy++. If the controls are all in a form that is part of your application then you can determine the control id.

Using sendkeys and things like that is more work and/or less reliable; it is more work becasue there is so much to do to make it reliable.

Do you need help determining the control id for each control? Do you need help sending the message?

Okay, I have looked at your question again. When you create each instance of the slave, you will have a process for each instance. You can get the window (form or whatever) for each process. I am not sure if there is a control id for a button in a WPF application. Perhaps there is an equivalent way to do this for WPF applications; I am not familiar with WPF.
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Vulpes15y ago
With SendKeys and keybd_event, you can only find a particular button by:

1. Sending the ENTER key if it's the default button for the form.

2. Tabbing to it and then sending the ENTER key.

3. Sending a short-cut key (i.e. Alt + some letter) if the button has one.

These functions know nothing about labels or the names of controls.

So, are you able to locate the correct button using one of these techniques?
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Tommy Miller15y ago
Now

I can create my master using form. How would I send a click event to a specific button where I multiple buttons with the same label? Even they have same labels, their name is unique.
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Vulpes15y ago
If you make the master application a windows forms (rather than a WPF) application, then you could try using SendKeys to send the appropriate keystrokes to each of the WPF slave applications to click their buttons.

See this thread (http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/Forums/Thread/112138/sending-data-from-one-aplciation-to-another-application.aspx) for some sample code.

If you want to leave the master applicaton as WPF then, as there's no SendKeys equivalent, you could try using the API function, keybd_event instead - see http://www.pinvoke.net/default.aspx/user32.keybd_event.
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