Monitor ShellWindows
By: Steve Waring
Home Pages: Journal Dolphinharbor
Created: 20021228
Last Update: 20021228
Overview
Use the IShellWindows interface to access all open ShellWindows, including InternetExplorer and WindowsExplorer windows. The ExplorerMonitor package makes use of Dolphin's Active-X event sinks to track changes to the list of open windows, and to track when each window changes its location.
Background
This is based on the information found in the Codeguru enumIE article.
Explorer Monitor
The above screenshot is from the ToGo ExplorerMonitor sample.
- The list should be updated as you open and close InternetExplorer and WindowsExplorer windows.
- An item in the list should be updated when you navigate to a new location.
- The popup menu contains a couple of commands that access/modify the item's IHTMLDocument
Usage
I wrote these classes a couple of months ago and ran the test ToGo for a couple of weeks to see if any problems showed up. Since then, I have made use of the lower-level methods in the DHE ShellWindows package to poll the Shell for a collection of open windows.
I have not made use of the classes in DHE ExplorerMonitor. These classes attempt to stay synchronized with the Shell by handling certain Active-X events. I have not as yet needed this functionality, however it could form the base of some interesting utility applications.
Downloads
This is released as TestWare; if you have any problems running this in your environment please let me know about it. It has been run successfully on WinXP, Win2k, and Win98 machines.
The DHEExplorerMonitor_3.zip (50k) contains three packages;
- DHE ShellWindows.pac which contains interfaces for Shell32.dll, generated by Dolphin's Active-X Component wizard.
- DHE ExplorerMonitor.pac which contains the classes that track the Shell Windows.
- DHE MSHTML.pac which contains interfaces generated by Dolphin's Active-X Component wizard to access the IHTMLDocuments.
The DHEExplorerMonitorToGo.zip (591k) is a test ToGo application.
How it works
See the DHE ExplorerMonitor.pac package comment and ExplorerMonitor/ExplorerObject class comments
Copyright Steve Waring 2002.