Hallo,
I am trying to keep track of the mouse position and also its delta position. Is there any nicer way of doing this then implementing all the mouse events for all my forms in my window?
The problem with using the MouseMove event is that as soon as the mouse moves outside of the form it stops working properly. Implementing the mouseEnter, mouseLeave improves it somewhat, but it does still not feel perfect. Any ideas?
Regards,
You have to handle lower level windows events.
Check out this example: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/globalhook.aspx
Related
On System.Windows.UIElement there is a CaptureMouse() and a paired ReleaseMouseCapture() method. In this WPF DragDrop sample they call CaptureMouse on MouseDown and release it on MouseUp. The documentation in MSDN is about as useless as it comes - "CaptureMouse -> Captures the mouse."
In my head before trying it I assumed that it somehow locked the mouse inside the UIElement bounds, but that's clearly not the case when I try it. From experimenting, it seems to have something to do with responding to events when the mouse is outside of the UIElement, but not wanting to be a cargo cult programmer I don't want to just use it because the example does, I'd like an authoritative description of what it means.
From Capture and Uncapture the Mouse on MSDN:
When an object captures the mouse, all mouse related events are treated as if the object with mouse capture perform the event, even if the mouse pointer is over another object.
Only the capturing control receives the mouse events until released.
Capturing the mouse is useful for dragging because all the dragging code can exist in the one control, rather than being spread over multiple controls.
When it has captured the mouse, a control will receive mouse events even if the mouse pointer is no longer within its bounding area.
Typically, it's used for:
Drag and drop
Buttons (to handle Mouse Up when you put the mouse down on the button and move the mouse before you release the button)
The Silverlight 2 documentation for it has a more verbose description, I don't know why it isn't a part of the 3.5 documentation page too:
When an object has captured the mouse, that object receives mouse input whether or not the mouse pointer is within its bounding area. The mouse is typically only captured during simulated drag operations.
...
It works the same with WPF, and so the reason it is used with DragDrop, is that is how the
it knows to report back to the control being dragged from when the mouse may be outside of that control. If you comment out the MyCanvas.Capture() and the Capture(Null) (which clears it) then you can no longer drop.
According to this question, the answer begins with "The MouseEnter/Leave events are too unreliable to do this." What exactly makes these events unreliable?
The mouse position is only polled every so often. It's very possible that one of those events - the mouse entering, or leaving, could occur between when the polls occur, and the events would not fire correctly.
This also makes a pretty concrete assumption that mouse movement will be continuous, rather than discrete - what if the user has a touch screen monitor? What if the mouse goes directly from inside the control to being way outside it, with no movement in between?
You missed the point entirely. These events are unreliable for the OP question, not in general.
The question was about seeing if the cursor is inside the forms client area. Having many controls the MouseEnter/Leave are unreliable because you will get these events even if you are inside the form's area.
I have a small video app that i would like to give vlc-like functionality. By that, I mean having a certain element disappear and appear on mouse move or mouse not moving. I have a rough concept of how to do this but I have no ideea how i coul detect if the mouse is moving or not. I thought about using the GetPosition function but that will just give me the mouse's position and won't let me know if the cursor is moving or not. I would like to use a timer to count down 2-3 seconds after the mouse has stopped moving and then either fade out the control or just make it collapse without further ado. I can't check the value of the position variable every milisecond. Is there some other way to do this ?
You can use a hook functionality so you will be notified when a mouse move, I use to use this free opensource library.
How to use it:
using Gma.UserActivityMonitor.GlobalEventProvider;
GlobalEventProvider _globalEventProvider1
= new Gma.UserActivityMonitor.GlobalEventProvider();
this.globalEventProvider1.MouseMove += HookMouseMove;//to listen to mouse move
Capture the mouse. Release the capture if the user actually clicks anywhere else. Then you can use the standard WPF mouse move event.
myElement.MouseMove += (my MouseMove handler)
Mouse.Capture(myElement);
Is there a way to get mouse position without attaching a event handler?
I'm trying to get a box to appear where the mouse is.
Thanks
Sp
Wouldn't you rather want it on a mouse-up or mouse-down event? Here are a few drag-and-drop tutorials that might help with ideas for capturing mouse positions:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc189066%28vs.95%29.aspx
(SL 1, but still good) http://blogs.msdn.com/b/nickkramer/archive/2007/06/27/drag-drop-with-feedback.aspx
Unfortunately, I think you'll have no other way than using the MouseMove event. You can attach it to the Application.Current.RootVisual (or any other layout root) though, so you should be able to implement your scenario.
I have an application wich open a modal form with the ShowDialog method.
Once this form is displayed I want to capture the mouse movement even if the cursor is outside the form.
How can I capture the mouse movement? I saw something with the Capture property but I cannot manage to make it work.
[edit]
I want to be notified if the mouse move outside the form.
The Capture property is the correct way, but there are some limitations.
Only the foreground window can capture the mouse
Mouse capturing can be disabled by other parts of the system
The Win32 API function SetCapture gets reset everytime a "mouse up" event occours. I assume that also applies for .NET.
See the remarks section of Capture property.
When the mouse is captured, you'll receive the usual events but with a wider mouse coordinate range (for example a negative X position, if the mouse is left of the capturing control)
Mouse capturing is fragile, because of it's global nature. Check if there are other ways to handle certain events. Perhaps the MouseLeave or MouseEnter events are enough in your case.
You can just use the static property Control.MousePosition.
You can read the position of the cursor, using the Cursor.Position property, see Cursor.Position