execute button from command propmpt - vb.net

Question

I am working on a vb.net project and i have a "start" and "Pause" Buttons on the FormPost.exe
I am trying to schedule a batch process to run every day in the morning at 4:00 AM.
How can i run a command prompt to execuite FormPost.exe and them click on "start" button, all via command prompt?
Please let me know. Thanks

Answer 1

What you can do is this override the OnControlCreateMethod() as follows:
Public Class Form1
Public Sub New()
' This call is required by the designer.
InitializeComponent()
' Add any initialization after the InitializeComponent() call.
End Sub
Protected Overrides Sub OnCreateControl()
MyBase.OnCreateControl()
If Environment.CommandLine.Contains("/clickme") Then
ClickMeButton.PerformClick()
// ... need to wait here until click event handler has finished, e.g.
// using synchronization objects
Close()
End If
End Sub
End Class
If you pass "/clickme" on the command line it will execute the click event and then close the form. If the form is the only one in the application it will terminate.
Be aware, though, that you will need to add some logic that waits for the click event handler to finish. Try avoid using polling or sleep. Instead try using synchronization objects.

Answer 2

If this is your application; you can modify the code so that it checks if you are running it from the command line / with appropriate arguments and fire the button click() itself. That'd be the easiest approach (I think John's answer shows this)
If it's not your application; you can still accomplish the same thing, but it's not as pretty. You can write code that will execute the winForm then activate it (to ensure it has focus)
Public Shared Sub ActivateWoW()
Dim myApp As Process = Process.GetProcessesByName("MyApp").First
AppActivate(myApp.Id)
End Sub
Then, you can use SendKeys() to simulate interaction with the form. Let's say the start button takes two 'tab' keys to be selected...
SendKeys.Send("{TAB}{TAB}")
Then a quick pause...
Thread.Sleep(25)
Then hit the enter key (which is almost always just as good as mouse click when the button is selected)
SendKeys.Send("{ENTER}")
If you want to get more involved than that; you need to start using WIN32 API calls. Here is some sample code for a Mouse click...
Private Declare Function FindWindow Lib "user32" Alias "FindWindowA" (ByVal lpClassName As String, ByVal lpWindowName As String) As IntPtr
Private Const WM_LBUTTONUP As Long = &H202
Private Const WM_RBUTTONUP As Long = &H205
Private Const WM_LBUTTONDOWN As Long = &H201
Private Const WM_RBUTTONDOWN As Long = &H204
Private Shared Function MakeDWord(ByVal LoWord As Integer, ByVal HiWord As Integer) As Long
Return (HiWord * &H10000) Or (LoWord And &HFFFF&)
End Function
Public Shared Sub SendMouseClick()
Dim Wow As Long = FindWindow("GxWindowClass", "MyWindow")
Dim dWord As Long = MakeDWord(LastX - LastRectX, LastY - LastRectY)
SendMessage(Wow, WM_RBUTTONDOWN, 1&, dWord)
Threading.Thread.Sleep(100)
SendMessage(Wow, WM_RBUTTONUP, 1&, dWord)
End Sub