Screen Scraping from Act 2000

[jake007]

I have had a request to create a program which will auto correct client addresses as they are entered into an ACT 2000 database. The correction of the address is no problem, I have created a small app that uses Satori's mailroom toolkit to correct individual addresses. What I need to be able to do is activate a piece of code (running as a service maybe?) which will correct the address on the act data entry scrfeen. Does anyone have any ideas how I can read the screen of another application in this manner?

Jake

 

[ThatRickGuy]

It might be easier to just watch the database and correct the data as it's coming in.

-Rick

VB.Net Forum forum796 forum855 ASP.NET Forum
I believe in killer coding ninja monkeys.

 

[jake007]

Probably not possible as the index is an encrypted key based on the address as is. IF I can catch the screen, change the address, then Act can save the record correctly.

Jake

 

[arznrchrd]

Use SpyXX.exe that comes with Visual Studio to interrogate the ACT application. Then from your app you can control it via Win32 API/user32.dll. The user32.dll is very powerful. If you send commands to the ACT app though, make sure you use postmessage and not sendmessage. Postmessage sends the command and you still have control over the app. Sendmessage waits for a response and makes your app in a stall mode until it receives a response. With SpyXX you can see everything about another application; buttons, menus, text boxes, etc. Once you know the handle of the address text box, you can trigger events in your app to correct the address.

 

[jake007]

Sounds like something to go on with the user32.dll. I don't suppose you may have a link to some docs regarding this dll?

jake

 

[arznrchrd]

No specific links. Do a search. Tons of stuff out there. I basically just searched for the functions I was mostly interested; findwindow, findwindowlike, postmessage, etc. Plus the constants. Be very keen when you interrogate the ACT application with SpyXX to ensure you have the exact hierarchy while coding your app.

 

[GLComputing]

Why not use the ACT! SDK -

http://itdomino.act.com/act.nsf/docid/10859

You can use the application object to detect when a record is added or modified and then run whatever routines you need to read and update the contact from there

Regards,
Mike Lazarus
ACT! Evangelist
GL Computing, Aust

http://www.GLComputing.com.au