🚀 go-pugleaf

Eric wrote:

> How difficult is it to write an interface for my program to control
> another application?

Others have mentioned, and I want to highlight, that it depends a
great deal on the application you want to control.

Some apps, for example Microsoft Excel, expose an interface that
allows you *total* control.  With that interface (called COM),
you can do anything programmatically in Excel that a user could
do using the app.

Other apps will be much harder to control, because they do not
offer a public API.  Sometimes in Windows, you can do a lot by
sending messages to the application you want to control.  This
often requires you identify the objects within the app and get
their "handles".  Tools exist (e.g. spy++) that can help you do
this.

> I intend to write a bot for an Internet game which uses a
> client stored on my PC.

Depending on a number of factors, you might wish to consider making
a new client rather than controlling the existing one.  Some of
the factors are: how complicated the client is, what it does,
whether you know or can get the internet protocol, the tools you
have and exactly what your goals are.

> However, I don't really have much experience with the Win32 API
> and would really appreciate some hints and pointers (no pun
> intended) to get me started.

You have a lot of material to cover.  Charles Petzold's book,
PROGRAMMING WINDOWS (5th ed.) is considered by many to be *THE*
Bible for Windows programming.  I know it taught me a great
deal.

And you might as well start getting used to MSDN...

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