Monitor for change in window

[laroberts]

I have an appication that has a status screen on it. This is a software package and I do not have the source code or anything like that for it. I want to create a VB application that will monitor this status screen in this application for any change, if there is a change of anykind, it will then popup an alert screen and make a beep.

The reason for this is due to the fact that the application screen that i want to monitor is a automated job runner at work. We have been having an issue where an job failes but no alert is getting send allthough the status screen is updating. So if I write something like this to monitor this screen for any change I can create my own alert.

I hope everybody understands what I mean.

I basiclly need to monitor another Windows program with one I write in VB.

Any help would be great. I have been looking for examples of how to monitor applications with another application in VB but have been unable to find anything.

Thanks!

 

[mskeel]

perhaps you can monitor it through other means such as system resources or files that it writes out?

What if you run the monitor program as a process of a VB app? Maybe you will have a little more control over it then? But it will still only be at the system level...

You might be able to do something hacky like occasionaly take a screen shot of the status screen and analyze it for expected changes in color in the picture?

Are there any other outputs you can monitor? What if you run it on the command line?