Mouse Cursor and CAPTUREBLT

Question

2.50/5 (2 votes)

See more:

MBUE - Thanks. I gave it a try and it does identify some "Layered" / "Transparent" windows, but not all. I've got a Sony Vaio and when I have the Vaio Gate utility (seemingly transparent) running, it never gets tagged. Any thoughts???

*************************************************************************************************************************

Is there a way to detect if Transparent and Layered Windows are visible on the desktop. If you could do this, you could conditionally BitBlt (with or without CAPTUREBLT). It wouldn't remove, but would minimize, the flicker.

*************************************************************************************************************************

Has anyone come up with a solution to the BitBlt CAPTUREBLT / Mouse Cursor Flicker issue?

Through research, I’ve determined why the mouse cursor flickers (BitBlt HIDE/SHOW cursor), but this is a real MS hack. Why didn’t they, at least, provide a BitBlt CAPTUREBLT<With Mouse> flag and a CAPTUREBLT<Without Mouse> flag – not rocket science???

If you have a solution please reply to [removed_email]@gmail.com (I travel and this is the easiest contact)

Thank you, in advance.

Posted 21-Jul-11 8:03am

Tim Simonetti

Updated 9-Aug-11 11:27am

v4

Add a Solution

Comments

walterhevedeich 21-Jul-11 22:53pm

Please don't post your email address. If someone has a solution to your problem, they will reply here.

Tim Simonetti 22-Jul-11 10:43am

I'm not here to slap leather - just to get a solution.

mbue 9-Aug-11 21:52pm

It woult be better to post a reply on my post so i will be notified about that.
There is indeed a possibility to create transparent windows by using non rectangular regions. that came up from win95. these windows are transparent an the part that is outside the region (for example the round corners of win-xp frames). to find such windows you should enumerate all windows (EnumWindows) and examine the windows region.
regards.

Tim Simonetti 10-Aug-11 12:00pm

MBUE - You're the best. Many thanks - I'll take a run at it.

Cheers!

2 solutions

Add a Solution

Add your solution here

Treat my content as plain text, not as HTML

Preview 0

…

Existing Members

Sign in to your account

...or Join us

Download, Vote, Comment, Publish.

Your Email
Password
Forgot your password?

Your Email
This email is in use. Do you need your password?
Optional Password

I have read and agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
Please subscribe me to the CodeProject newsletters

When answering a question please:

Read the question carefully.
Understand that English isn't everyone's first language so be lenient of bad spelling and grammar.
If a question is poorly phrased then either ask for clarification, ignore it, or edit the question and fix the problem. Insults are not welcome.
Don't tell someone to read the manual. Chances are they have and don't get it. Provide an answer or move on to the next question.

Let's work to help developers, not make them feel stupid.

This content, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

Emilio Garavaglia · Answer 1 · 2011-07-21T22:05:00

Solution 1

How does MS wrote his code is something you shold ask to MS, not here.
My guess is that the "mouse" (that is an hardware device) has nothing to do with it.
The "cursor" (that represents the mouse position, and is what you should more properly speak about) is noting more than an icon blit-ted on the screen. If you blit something else over, it will be covered. It will reappear as the system is forced (by a mouse move or by a hide/show) to reblit it.
It not a matter of rockets, but of physics.

Of course MS can do an api that does the mouse rewrite automatically after a blit, but blit does not necessarilly write on screen. The cursor is just another thing not related to image processing. Writing such an API breaks the encapsulation of the two concepts.

Posted 21-Jul-11 22:05pm

Emilio Garavaglia

Comments

Tim Simonetti 22-Jul-11 10:42am

The MS comment was just rhetorical. If you Google this issue it is a very real programming problem. The problem is that internally MS does a ShowCursor (FALSE) / ShowCursor (TRUE) every time you BitBlt – this creates a Blinking Cursor. My question is basically has anyone found a programming solution/work-around to this issue.

Emilio Garavaglia 22-Jul-11 12:06pm

I got your point (my answer is equally rhetorical ...)but for the problem you pose there cannot be any "programming workaround", since it relates on the fact that the hardware doesn't have the concept of "mouse cursor": it is just a picture the software draws on it. And that conflict with any other software drawing on it!

Tim Simonetti 22-Jul-11 12:24pm

I hear what you're saying. I had created a sprite-cursor that followed the cursor and dynamically took on the appearance of the cursor. It works pretty well, but not perfectly. I know that the MS BitBlt issue can’t be fixed (outside of MS) – just curious if anyone has worked around it.

mbue · Answer 2 · 2011-08-08T10:53:00

if(WS_EX_LAYERED & GetWindowLong(hwnd,GWL_EXSTYLE))
{
  // <- layered window
}

if(WS_EX_TRANSPARENT & GetWindowLong(hwnd,GWL_EXSTYLE))
{
  // <- transparent window
}

CAPTUREBLT is always without mouse cursor shape. since windows 3.1 and grapic cards with hardware overlay capablities you must not hide the cursor as you should do on windows 3.0 before painting. this is the reason why there was no flicker of the mouse cursor anyway. except the cursor is hidden and shown by the program, perhaps on WM_SETCURSOR message. the print screen function does it from traditional reasons. if you want the cursor shape you have to paint it yourself.
Regards.