AutoIt Basics [Get window text,read control]

[Zisly]

This is my fourth tutorial!

Ok, we went trough how to create a simple GUI in the last tutorial.
So now we play a bit with the GUI we created.
Remember comments are started by a ';'

Ok here is the code to the GUI we will use

; Include the needed libraries
#include <ButtonConstants.au3>
#include <EditConstants.au3>
#include <GUIConstantsEx.au3>
#include <WindowsConstants.au3>

; create GUI window with the size of 269*99
$Form1 = GUICreate("Test Gui", 269, 99, 193, 115)
; create input control
$Input1 = GUICtrlCreateInput("", 72, 16, 121, 21)
; create a button which says "Hit Me"
$Button1 = GUICtrlCreateButton("Hit Me", 96,56, 75, 25, 0)
; set the GUI to to show, so you can see it
GUISetState(@SW_SHOW)

While 1 ; loop until expression is false
	$nMsg = GUIGetMsg()
	Switch $nMsg
		Case $GUI_EVENT_CLOSE ; if the user clicks on X (closes the window)
			Exit ;  the script will exit.
	EndSwitch
WEnd; end of loop

Ok, that is the code we will use.

Now we will modify it a bit.

While 1 ; loop until expression is false
	$nMsg = GUIGetMsg()
	Switch $nMsg
		Case $GUI_EVENT_CLOSE ; if the user clicks on X (closes the window)
			Exit ;  the script will exit.
                Case $button1 ; the the user clicks on the button
                        MsgBox(0,"Tutorial","Text of input : " & GUICtrlRead($Input1)) ; promp a message box telling you what text the input controls has
	EndSwitch
WEnd; end of loop

Ok, as you can see I have added 2 lines of code, the first one is nothing to explain,really just read the comment.
But I will explain line 2.

So, what we do here is; when you click on the button a message box will appear telling you what text there is in the input.

First we make the a message box, with the parameter '0' and the title 'Tutorial'
then we add the text the box should have, which is 'Text of input : ".
Now as you can see there is a '&' sign, if you might not know what it means
but it just means plus,and.

Now you will see something new

]GUICtrlRead($Input1)

Whats this does, is; it reads/gets the text from a control, in this case '$Input1'
Not really much more to explain about it, it just returns the text/value of a control.

So now you know how to read controls.


Now when we are at getting text/values why not explain how to obtain text from another window?
For this we will use WinGetText("","")

So, now we will modify the code from before.

While 1 ; loop until expression is false
	$nMsg = GUIGetMsg()
	Switch $nMsg
		Case $GUI_EVENT_CLOSE ; if the user clicks on X (closes the window)
			Exit ;  the script will exit.
                Case $button1 ; the the user clicks on the button
			MsgBox(0,"TUTORIAL", "Text from the window : " & WinGetText("Untitled -","")) ; get text from the window with the title "Untitled"
	EndSwitch
WEnd; end of loop

Ok, the code is very similar from the one before.
When you click on the button a message box will appear (just as the other example) but this time we don't use 'GuiCtrlRead' we use 'WinGetText', so I will explain it.

The 'WinGetText' function retrieves the text from a specific window, this case "Untitled -" which is the from a new file in notepad.
So "WinGetText("Untitled -","")" will get all text that the window has and then
put the text after "Text from the window : " in the message box.

If you want, you can specifie what text to get from the window( ex

"WinGetText("Untitled -","gg")

Now it will get the "gg" text, check out the help file on how you can use this


Ok, I hope you have understood the tutorial

If you are unsure about something, just ask!
PS: Tutorial was written long time ago.


Add rep if you found this useful!

 

[Zisly]

Bump my tutorial.

 

[christiandb]

nice tutorial mate. keep it up i'd love toknow more about autoit.

 

[k3thunder]

this is nice! im learning still but im going to get good at all this programing stuff =P

 

[zeedream]

thx for the tut

 

[Oscar Lyis]

Cool Zisly, I would appriecate if you could link your other guides (the previous ones) in the same post, if possible.

GJ and thank you for sharing the "information"