Win32 Global hooks and mouse overs....

[Mr Jen Withers]

Hey there, ive got a feeling there wont be an easy answer / solution to this question but if you dont ask you dont get! I was wondering if there is any way to globally capture mouse overs in windows. Iam not sure if the way ive described this will make much sense to anyone so a quick usecase might help. When a user opens up the start menu and highlights 'my documents', the background colour changes to blue to show you have your mouse hovered over it. Can this event possibly be captured? I imagine capturing mouse overs on the start menu will be different to say catching a highlighted menu option in visual studio. But id really like to know if there is any way of globally detecting when hovering the mouse "highlights" something on the screen in relation. Any help guys? Thanks in advance

[AlexAbramov]

Have you thought about getting into the address space of the process that creates the window(s) and subclassing the particular window in order to capture the relevant messages?

[Mr Jen Withers]

I had looked into this and it doesnt seem to hard to do providing I learn enough about the win32 API. However the part which seems to vary between applications is capturing the relevant messages. Ive used winspector to look at messages being sent back & forth between windows and there does appear to be any pattern to what happens when something under the cursor changes due to a 'mouse over'. I noticed the startbar (dv3controlhost , syslistview32) calls wm_ncpaint followed by wm_erasebackground when I move between items and the mouse overs activate but this doesnt seem consistance with other applications ive looked at like Adobe Audition. But ive notice Adobde Audition uses alot of custom classes in its contruction......