{"id":191,"date":"2007-10-06T21:42:37","date_gmt":"2007-10-06T21:42:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/?p=191"},"modified":"2007-10-06T21:57:58","modified_gmt":"2007-10-06T21:57:58","slug":"getting-the-currently-selected-text-from-pocket-internet-explorer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/?p=191","title":{"rendered":"Getting the currently selected text from Pocket Internet Explorer"},"content":{"rendered":"

As part of my hack for mobileCampLondon<\/a>, I wanted to get the current selection from the web browser on my Windows Mobile phone. <\/p>\n

The plan was to add a new menu item to Pocket Internet Explorer that lets you search for the text you’ve selected in Google. So I needed to get the currently selected text in order to include it in a Google search page URL. I thought it’d be simple, but it turned out to be more of a hassle than I expected.<\/p>\n

My final approach is more of a hack than I’d have liked, so in this post, I’ll outline my unsuccessful approaches before showing what I finally ended up doing.<\/p>\n

My handle to Pocket Internet Explorer (PIE) is represented by pWebBrowser – a IWebBrowser2<\/a> object.<\/p>\n

Attempt 1 – ExecWB<\/strong><\/p>\n

The most obvious approach was to use ExecWB to execute a copy command, and get the currently selected text from the clipboard. <\/p>\n

HRESULT hr = pWebBrowser->ExecWB(OLECMDID_COPY, OLECMDEXECOPT_DONTPROMPTUSER, NULL, NULL);<\/pre>\n
This didn’t work. <\/p>\n
hr<\/code> ends up containing -2147221248<\/code> (“Trying to revoke a drop target that has not been registered”). <\/p>\n
A look at the MSDN documentation for ExecWB<\/a> (I do look at documentation occasionally… honest!<\/em>) says that: <\/p>\n
This method is not supported for Windows Mobile Version 5.0 and later.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This doesn’t mean it’s not implemented (some commands seem to work – a little experimentation shows that using ExecWB to send OLECMDID_SELECTALL<\/code>, for example, does select everything on the page as you’d expect). But it does apparently mean that I can’t moan that it won’t work. And -2147417848 seems to mean that the OLECMDID value you’ve tried to use is not defined<\/a>. <\/p>\n
It was time to think of another way…<\/p>\n
Attempt 2 – IHTMLDocument2<\/strong><\/p>\n
The next plan was to get a handle to the HTML document<\/a> being displayed by the web browser, and use the selection<\/code><\/a> property to get the currently selected text. <\/p>\n
Easy? Erm… not so much.<\/p>\n
After much searching through the Windows Mobile SDK, I couldn’t find IHTMLDocument2 anywhere. But, I did find a mention of IPIEHTMLDocument2<\/code> in an idl<\/code> file in the SDK Include directory. (Ugh. I don’t get the point of idl files… why do I have to build my own libraries? \ud83d\ude41 <\/em>)<\/p>\n
There were a few steps between me and getting a handle to a IPIEHTMLDocument2 object…<\/p>\n
C:\\\\Program Files\\\\Windows Mobile\\\\Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC SDK\\\\Include\\\\Armv4i>midl \/D:UNDER_CE \/I . webvw.idl\r\nMicrosoft (R) 32b\/64b MIDL Compiler Version 6.00.0366\r\nCopyright (c) Microsoft Corporation 1991-2002. All rights reserved.\r\nProcessing .\\\\webvw.idl\r\nwebvw.idl\r\nProcessing .\\\\oaidl.idl\r\noaidl.idl\r\nProcessing .\\\\objidl.idl\r\nobjidl.idl\r\nProcessing .\\\\unknwn.idl\r\nunknwn.idl\r\nProcessing .\\\\wtypes.idl\r\nwtypes.idl\r\nProcessing .\\\\basetsd.h\r\nbasetsd.h\r\nProcessing .\\\\ocidl.idl\r\nocidl.idl\r\nProcessing .\\\\oleidl.idl\r\noleidl.idl\r\nProcessing .\\\\dispex.idl\r\ndispex.idl\r\nProcessing .\\\\servprov.idl\r\nservprov.idl\r\nProcessing .\\\\urlmon.idl\r\nurlmon.idl\r\nProcessing .\\\\msxml2.idl\r\nmsxml2.idl\r\nProcessing C:\\\\Program Files\\\\IDEs\\\\Visual Studio 2005\\\\VC\\\\PlatformSDK\\\\include\\\\oaidl.acf\r\noaidl.acf\r\nProcessing C:\\\\Program Files\\\\IDEs\\\\Visual Studio 2005\\\\VC\\\\PlatformSDK\\\\include\\\\ocidl.acf\r\nocidl.acf<\/pre>\n
This produces a webvw.tlb<\/code> file, which I imported into my code using:<\/p>\n
#import \"C:\\\\\\\\Program Files\\\\\\\\Windows Mobile\\\\\\\\Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC SDK\\\\\\\\Include\\\\\\\\Armv4i\\\\\\\\webvw.tlb\" <\/pre>\n
Then I added wvuuid.lib<\/code> to the project dependencies in Visual Studio. <\/p>\n
On the plus side, this let me get a IPIEHTMLDocument2 object:<\/p>\n
IDispatch* pHtmlDocDispatch;\r\nIOleCommandTarget* pOleCommandTarget;\r\nWEBVIEWLib::IPIEHTMLDocument2*         pHTMLDocument2;\r\nWEBVIEWLib::IPIEHTMLWindow2*           pHTMLWindow; \r\n            IPIEHTMLElementCollection* pHTMLElementCollection;\r\n\r\nhr = pWebBrowser->get_Document(&pHtmlDocDispatch);\r\nCHR(hr);\r\n\r\nif (pHtmlDocDispatch != NULL)\r\n{\r\n    hr = pHtmlDocDispatch->QueryInterface(IID_IPIEHTMLDocument2, (void**)&pHTMLDocument2);\r\n    CHR(hr);\r\n\r\n    hr = pHTMLDocument2->get_parentWindow(&pHTMLWindow);\r\n    CHR(hr);\r\n\r\n    pHTMLDocument2->selection ... oh. bugger.\r\n}<\/pre>\n
On the down side… dammit. IPIEHTMLDocument2<\/code> doesn’t have the selection<\/code> property. So this was all for nothing. Damn. <\/p>\n
Attempt 3 – DTM_COPYSELECTIONTONEWISTREAM<\/strong><\/p>\n
At this point, I was running out of ideas and turned to Google for inspiration. I came across the idea of using SendMessage<\/a>  to send DTM_COPYSELECTIONTONEWISTREAM<\/code> to the web browser’s window.<\/p>\n
The code looks something like this:<\/p>\n
ULONG ulNumChars = 0;\r\nLPWSTR pSelectedText = NULL;\r\nLPSTREAM pStream = 0;\r\nDWORD rsd = 0;\r\nHGLOBAL hglbCopy;\r\nLPTSTR lptstrCopy; \r\nHWND hWndHTML;\r\n\r\nIOleWindow *pOleWindow;\r\nhr = pDataObj->QueryInterface(IID_IOleWindow, (void**)&pOleWindow);\r\nCHR(hr);\r\n\r\nhr = pOleWindow->GetWindow(&hWndHTML);\r\nCHR(hr);\r\n\r\nhr = SendMessage(hWndHTML, \r\n                 DTM_COPYSELECTIONTONEWISTREAM, \r\n                 (WPARAM)&rsd, \r\n                 (LPARAM)&pStream); \r\n                 CHR(hr);\r\n\r\nif(pStream)\r\n{\r\n    STATSTG stat = { 0 };\r\n    hr = pStream->Stat(&stat, STATFLAG_NONAME);\r\n    CHR(hr); \r\n\r\n    pSelectedText = (LPWSTR)LocalAlloc(LPTR,(ULONG)stat.cbSize.QuadPart + 4);\r\n\r\n    if (pSelectedText)\r\n    {\r\n        hr = pStream->Read(pSelectedText, \r\n                           (ULONG)stat.cbSize.QuadPart, \r\n                           &ulNumChars);\r\n        CHR(hr);\r\n\r\n        EmptyClipboard();\r\n        hglbCopy = GlobalAlloc(GMEM_MOVEABLE, ulNumChars+2);\r\n        if(hglbCopy != NULL)\r\n        {\r\n            lptstrCopy = (LPTSTR) GlobalLock(hglbCopy);\r\n            memcpy(lptstrCopy, pSelectedText, ulNumChars);\r\n            GlobalUnlock(hglbCopy);\r\n            SetClipboardData(CF_UNICODETEXT, hglbCopy);\r\n        }\r\n\r\n        LocalFree(pSelectedText);\r\n    }\r\n\r\n    pStream->Release ();\r\n}\r\n\r\nCloseClipboard();<\/pre>\n
Sounds good, and certainly looks the business.<\/p>\n
Except, it didn’t work. Or at least, in a weekend where I spent more time meeting people and joining in discussions than coding<\/a>, I didn’t get the bottom of what is wrong with it. Whatever I did, pStream<\/code> stayed empty. \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n
Attempt 4 – Cheating<\/strong><\/p>\n
Okay, so at this point it was getting late on Sunday and I was still no nearer to solving what was supposed to a small aspect of the hacks I wanted to show people. So… I kinda cheated. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
keybd_event (VK_CONTROL, 0, 0,               0);\r\nkeybd_event (0x43,       0, 0,               0);\r\nSleep(1000);\r\nkeybd_event (0x43,       0, KEYEVENTF_KEYUP, 0);\r\nkeybd_event (VK_CONTROL, 0, KEYEVENTF_KEYUP, 0);<\/pre>\n
I used keybd_event<\/a> to fake a Ctrl-C keystroke. I press Ctrl and C, wait for a bit, then release them, copying the selection to the clipboard. <\/p>\n
Urgh, Very hacky, but I guess that is in-keeping with the spirit of a hack challenge<\/a>!<\/p>\n
So there we go… if anyone knows a better way of doing this, or if anyone knows why I couldn’t get DTM_COPYSELECTIONTONEWISTREAM<\/code> to work, I’d love to hear from you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As part of my hack for mobileCampLondon, I wanted to get the current selection from the web browser on my Windows Mobile phone. The plan was to add a new menu item to Pocket Internet Explorer that lets you search for the text you’ve selected in Google. So I needed to get the currently selected […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-code"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}