Tool for examining the structure of a windows forms application

Question

Hi,

does anybody know a tool for examining the structure of a windows forms application? I want to get information about every control on the form like buttons, labels etc. I tried Spy++ but it tells me only some information about the window structure, but nothing about the internal controls.

Thanks! Mark

Answer 1

Have you tried Document Outline in Visual Studio?

You can use the outline to do the following in Windows Forms applications in Visual Studio:

• View the logical structure of a Form or a UserControl.

• Put user input focus on deeply nested controls that may be hard to select on the Form or UserControl itself.

• Move controls from one parent to another parent.

• See controls that may be visually hidden by other controls.

Answer 2

Thanks for your comment, but I need a tool to examine the structure of a running, foreign application.

Answer 3

You might want to look into Active Accessibility. Assuming that the application just uses standard controls (or is accessibility enabled), MSAA will allow you to interact with the controls as a tree.

Answer 4

Try using the AutoIt Window Info tool, it is similar to Spy++, but it may offer some additional data.

http://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/docs/intro/au3spy.htm

Answer 5

Thank you for your answers, but unfortunately none of the tools you suggested can give me details about the controls inside a window. They only give some information about the window itself, like Spy++...