how to check if save dialog box is open or not

Question

i want to check if save dialog box is open or noti.e. no matter if the dialog box is open in photoshop or in any other application my c # program should come to know that a save dialog box is open.

Vulpes · Answer

To detect when the Save button is pressed you need to hook into the SaveFileDialog's message queue. As the callback function for a global system hook needs to be placed in an unmanaged dll this is impossible using C# code alone because C# can only produce managed dlls. However it is possible to do something using an unmanaged C++ dll as an intermediary and this CP article describes how if you want to try: http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/18638/Using-Window-Messages-to-Implement-Global-System-H You'll need the handles for both the Save button and the edit box part of the combobox into which the file name is typed. To get at the handles you need the windows class names for these controls which can be found by examining the SaveFileDialog box with a tool such as Spy++. Although it's easy to get the handle for the Save button which is a child of the main window it's less easy to get the handle for the edit box which is nested in four other controls! Anyway I've extended the previous code to show how to get the handles. I've also shown how you can get the text of the file name edit box though this is of course before the Save button is pressed: using System; using System.Runtime.InteropServices; using System.Text; class Program { [DllImport(user32.dll)] static extern IntPtr FindWindow(string lpClassName string lpWindowName); [DllImport(user32.dll)] static extern IntPtr FindWindowEx(IntPtr hwndParent IntPtr hwndChildAfter string lpszClass string lpszWindow); [DllImport(user32.dll CharSet = CharSet.Auto)] static extern IntPtr SendMessage(IntPtr hWnd uint Msg int wParam StringBuilder lParam); const uint WM_GETTEXT = 0x0D; const uint WM_GETTEXTLENGTH = 0X0E; static void Main() { IntPtr hWnd = FindWindow(null Save As); if(hWnd != IntPtr.Zero) { Console.WriteLine(Save File Dialog is open); // get handle of Save button IntPtr hwndButton = FindWindowEx(hWnd IntPtr.Zero Button &Save); Console.WriteLine(The handle of the Save button is  + hwndButton); // get handle of combobox's edit box IntPtr chwnd1 = FindWindowEx(hWnd IntPtr.Zero DUIViewWndClassName null); IntPtr chwnd2 = FindWindowEx(chwnd1 IntPtr.Zero DirectUIHWND null); IntPtr chwnd3 = FindWindowEx(chwnd2 IntPtr.Zero FloatNotifySink null); IntPtr chwnd4 = FindWindowEx(chwnd3 IntPtr.Zero ComboBox null); IntPtr hwndEdit = FindWindowEx(chwnd4 IntPtr.Zero Edit null); Console.WriteLine(The handle of the Edit box is  + hwndEdit); // try and get text of edit box. Need to get its length first int len = (int)SendMessage(hwndEdit WM_GETTEXTLENGTH 0 null); var sb = new StringBuilder(len + 1); SendMessage(hwndEdit WM_GETTEXT sb.Capacity sb); string text = sb.ToString(); Console.WriteLine(The Edit box contains  + text); } else { Console.WriteLine(Save File Dialog is not open); } Console.ReadKey(); } } I used the managed SaveFileDialog class - Windows classname #32770(Dialog) - for this exercise and although this is based on the Win32 version it's possible that some applications might use customized versions and so the above code may not work for all of them.

Vulpes · Answer

Try the following which uses the Win32 API function FindWindow to check if there is a 'top level' window open anywhere on the desktop with the caption Save As: using System; using System.Runtime.InteropServices; class Program { [DllImport(user32.dll)] static extern IntPtr FindWindow(string lpClassName string lpWindowName); static void Main() { IntPtr hWnd = FindWindow(null Save As); if(hWnd != IntPtr.Zero) { Console.WriteLine(Save File Dialog is open); } else { Console.WriteLine(Save File Dialog is not open); } Console.ReadKey(); } }

Vulpes · Answer

The only satisfactory way is to install the global system hook as described in the article. However if you're not keen on the complexity of that one other thing you could do is to check every second (say) whether the SaveFileDialog is open using a Timer. If it was open a second ago but is now closed it's probably safe to assume that whatever the file path was a second ago still applied when the button was pressed. You could confirm that the Save button rather than the Cancel button was pressed by checking whether the file actually exists or not.

vishnu nair · Answer

thanks a lot again .... i got all the thing i needed to store but not the only problem now is how will i know when the save button is pressed in order to store my information.

vishnu nair · Answer

Now can i get the file path as a string back to my program when i hit the save button in the dialog box

Sibeesh Venu · Answer

Please accept the answer of Vulpes if it helped you. So that others can get the help from it. Kindest Regards Sibeesh http://sibeeshpassion.com/

vishnu nair · Answer

Thanks a lot... this was exactly what i wanted

Sibeesh Venu · Answer

So do you mean that you want to read all the running application program's status? Kindest Regards Sibeesh http://sibeeshpassion.com/