Russ Freeman
August 21st, 2002, 05:28 AM
I have begun work on a better windows spy tool. Spy++ has some frustrating and serious drawbacks that have irritated me for the last time.
Right now I have something working, and working rather well , but what I need is nput from people that use Spy++ regularly.
This is a free tool and it will in no way ever-ever-ever become a commercial product - mainly because whilst Spy++ is free then there is no real market for a commercial one. And I can;t see MS making Spy++ an add-on!?!
Here's a quick overview of what it does right now:
* Window list.
The window list has a couple of options such as hiding hidden windows (clutter reduction) and automatic refresh (this is nice).
My favourite feature is watching for a window class e.g. Whilst debugging an application the process you have to go through in Spy++ to watch the messages for your application can be quite painful. In WinSpector just right click the window in the list and select "Watch this window class". When WinSpector sees this class it will either start recording messages or show the properties, or both.
You can edit the window class watch list from the edit menu.
* Message window
Right-click a message to hide it. The hidden list (filter) is not saved yet but I plan on saving it on a per-window-class basis.
Right-click to show all messages again, show all messages or pause the output.
Whilst paused messages are not lost and when you un-pause the stream is updated and it then continues. Also, messages that are filtered are not lost either.
I plan to have a dialog *similar* to Spy++, but not so ugly, for filtering messages. I have yet to decide exactly how and I am open to suggestions.
Note that I have not decoded the WPARAM and LPARAM of all messages and so far I have added only generic window messages. thing like TVM_* will come later as I make the system more robust and feature rich.
* Properties window
This is really a proof of concept. Single click on the icon to copy to clipboard, nice and easy to read format, I like this approach. I've got a ton of work to do here decoding all of the styles, class information etc. but I think this is a goo dway to represent it all.
I've got a big bag of features I'd like to add but I would welcome more, I'm sure everyone has a slightly different use for Spy++ and I'd love to hear how we can make this tool even better.
Anyway, you can read some more and download the tool from the link below. If you want to be notified of when I update then sign up to the web site email list.
Disclaimer: I can't promise that this tool won't work and I can't promise that your computer will continue to work afterwards - pretty much the same as anything found on CP I guess. Use at your own risk.
http://www.gipsysoft.com/articles/winspector/
I look forward to your feedback - which would best be by email so I don't miss anything I guess.
Right now I have something working, and working rather well , but what I need is nput from people that use Spy++ regularly.
This is a free tool and it will in no way ever-ever-ever become a commercial product - mainly because whilst Spy++ is free then there is no real market for a commercial one. And I can;t see MS making Spy++ an add-on!?!
Here's a quick overview of what it does right now:
* Window list.
The window list has a couple of options such as hiding hidden windows (clutter reduction) and automatic refresh (this is nice).
My favourite feature is watching for a window class e.g. Whilst debugging an application the process you have to go through in Spy++ to watch the messages for your application can be quite painful. In WinSpector just right click the window in the list and select "Watch this window class". When WinSpector sees this class it will either start recording messages or show the properties, or both.
You can edit the window class watch list from the edit menu.
* Message window
Right-click a message to hide it. The hidden list (filter) is not saved yet but I plan on saving it on a per-window-class basis.
Right-click to show all messages again, show all messages or pause the output.
Whilst paused messages are not lost and when you un-pause the stream is updated and it then continues. Also, messages that are filtered are not lost either.
I plan to have a dialog *similar* to Spy++, but not so ugly, for filtering messages. I have yet to decide exactly how and I am open to suggestions.
Note that I have not decoded the WPARAM and LPARAM of all messages and so far I have added only generic window messages. thing like TVM_* will come later as I make the system more robust and feature rich.
* Properties window
This is really a proof of concept. Single click on the icon to copy to clipboard, nice and easy to read format, I like this approach. I've got a ton of work to do here decoding all of the styles, class information etc. but I think this is a goo dway to represent it all.
I've got a big bag of features I'd like to add but I would welcome more, I'm sure everyone has a slightly different use for Spy++ and I'd love to hear how we can make this tool even better.
Anyway, you can read some more and download the tool from the link below. If you want to be notified of when I update then sign up to the web site email list.
Disclaimer: I can't promise that this tool won't work and I can't promise that your computer will continue to work afterwards - pretty much the same as anything found on CP I guess. Use at your own risk.
http://www.gipsysoft.com/articles/winspector/
I look forward to your feedback - which would best be by email so I don't miss anything I guess.