UI Automation “Selected text”

Question

Anyone knows how to get selected text from other application using UI Automation and .Net?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms745158.aspx

Answer 1

Here is another solution using only UI Automation. It gets the selected text from Notepad and Wordpad.

// Get only top level windows
PropertyCondition condition = new PropertyCondition(AutomationElement.ControlTypeProperty, ControlType.Window);
AutomationElementCollection windows = AutomationElement.RootElement.FindAll(TreeScope.Children, condition);
List<AutomationElement> allDocuments = new List<AutomationElement>();

foreach (AutomationElement window in windows)
{
    string className = window.Current.ClassName;
    if (className == "Notepad" || className == "WordPadClass")
    {
        condition = new PropertyCondition(AutomationElement.ControlTypeProperty, ControlType.Document);
        AutomationElementCollection documents = window.FindAll(TreeScope.Children, condition);

        if (documents.Count > 0)
        {
            allDocuments.Add(documents[0]);
        }
    }
}

// store all pieces of selected text here
List<string> selectedText = new List<string>();

// iterate through all documents found
foreach (AutomationElement document in allDocuments)
{
    object patternObj = null;
    if (document.TryGetCurrentPattern(TextPattern.Pattern, out patternObj) == true)
    {
        TextPattern textPattern = patternObj as TextPattern;
        TextPatternRange[] ranges = textPattern.GetSelection();

        foreach (TextPatternRange range in ranges)
        {
            string text = range.GetText(-1);
            if (text.Length > 0)
            {
                selectedText.Add(text);
            }
        }
    }
}

Answer 2

private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {
        Process[] plist = Process.GetProcesses();

        foreach (Process p in plist) {
            if (p.ProcessName == "notepad") {

                AutomationElement ae = AutomationElement.FromHandle(p.MainWindowHandle);

                AutomationElement npEdit = ae.FindFirst(TreeScope.Descendants, new PropertyCondition(AutomationElement.ClassNameProperty, "Edit"));

                TextPattern tp = npEdit.GetCurrentPattern(TextPattern.Pattern) as TextPattern;

                TextPatternRange[] trs;

                if (tp.SupportedTextSelection == SupportedTextSelection.None) {
                    return;
                }
                else {
                    trs = tp.GetSelection();
                    lblSelectedText.Text = trs[0].GetText(-1);
                }
            }
        }
    }