Changing the focused window in windows xp from java-based web application using JNA and Windows sendMessage API

Question

I'm wondering if anyone has any experience using JNA to call windows sendMessage API from a java web application running in a browser to change the focus from the browser to another program that is already running on the computer.

I'm building out a Parts catalog that once the user has chosen the parts they want to sell to the customer, I need to automatically open the Point of Sale system so that the employee can tender the transaction. They want this to happen on some event in the parts catalog, not just an ALT-Tab or something similar. I believe the registers run some sort of kiosk version of XP and the browser (Probably going to be Firefox 5), so some of the functionality, like the task bar and start menu, etc. are not there. Maybe JNA and the windows API is the wrong way completely. Any help or direction would be greatly appreciated!

I'm not sure what you mean by sandbox issues? It'd definitely be a bit hacktacular, assuming I can figure out a way to make it work. — Richard Allred
– Richard Allred, Commented Sep 27, 2011 at 13:35

technomage · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-04 13:23:56Z

1

A straightforward method would be to enumerate the extant windows until you find the one you're looking for, and then invoke the appropriate win32 method to activate/focus that window directly.

answered Oct 4, 2011 at 13:23

technomage

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Richard Allred Over a year ago

Can you elaborate on this a little bit. Maybe point me to some resources that might give some examples of this implemented? Thanks!

technomage Over a year ago

There's an example at github.com/twall/jna/blob/master/www/CallbacksAndClosures.md which does the win32 window enumeration with a callback. Within the callback, figure out if the window just passed is the one you want. As for activating/focusing the window, a quick search on MS dev ought to show you the right API function to call.

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