How to get MouseMove events as in WinEyes?

Question

There's an old Windows program called WinEyes which is a form with a pair of eyes that look at the mouse cursor wherever it is on the screen. So it's capturing MouseMove events even when the mouse cursor is NOT over the form itself! How can I do the same in C#?

clive908 · Answer

I have already tried that. It stops the moment the mouse is no longer on an application window! Microsoft has the following knowledge base article: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;318804 in which they state: Global Hook Is Not Supported in .NET Framework I assume this means this simply is not possible in .NET which is disappointing. .NET is ok for webpages and front ends but I'm not sure it's a real alternative for general programming needs. Ah well.

spgilmore · Answer

This may require some interop functionality. I believe that you can do this with the Win32 Function SetWindowsHookEx. You might declare such a function call like this: private delegate void mouseproc(int nCode uint wParam uint lParam); [DllImport(user32.dll)] private static extern SetSystemHookEx(int idHook mouseproc lpfn int hmod int dwthreadid); See the Platform SDK help for more on system hooks mouseproc and windows messages. For further questions about .NET Interoperability there is an Interop section in this forum.