Develop Reference

PyWin32 handler registered by PyCWnd.HookMessage() not being called after PyCWnd.PostMessage() and PumpWaitingMessages()

I'm creating an windows app using pywin32, specifically with components under pywin.mfc module.
For internal logic, I want the app to do certain things whenever a user defined window message is posted by PyCWnd.PostMessage() function.
So I registered an handler method using PyCWnd.HookMessage() but that never gets triggered although I do PyCWnd.PostMessage().
My vague guess is that the message pump implementation that I'm using is not suitable for Pythonwin framework compared to win32 apis, but not sure.
Python script below is used for testing.
The PumpWaitingMessages() implementation below is copied from builtin method win32gui.PumpWaitingMessages() but written in python in order to inspect what is going on inside that function.
You can just replace with the original one if it's suspicious.
I expect app prints "OnUser" asynchronously after calling frame.PostMessage(win32con.WM_USER, 0, 0).
import win32con
import win32gui
import win32ui
from pywin.mfc.thread import WinApp
from pywin.mfc.window import MDIFrameWnd
app = WinApp()
frame = MDIFrameWnd()
app.SetMainFrame(frame)
frame.LoadFrame(
win32ui.IDR_MAINFRAME,
win32con.WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW,
)
frame.UpdateWindow()
def OnUser(params):
print("OnUser")
frame.HookMessage(OnUser, win32con.WM_USER) # let's print "OnUser" on WM_USER message
frame.SendMessage(win32con.WM_USER, 0, 0) # prints "OnUser" right away
frame.PostMessage(win32con.WM_USER, 0, 0) # hope that app prints "OnUser" later on
def PumpWaitingMessages():
available = 1
should_quit = 0
while available:
available, msg = win32gui.PeekMessage(0, 0, 0, win32con.PM_REMOVE)
if available:
if msg[1] == win32con.WM_QUIT:
should_quit = 1
break
win32gui.TranslateMessage(msg)
print(msg) # seems the posted message reaches here
win32gui.DispatchMessage(msg) # but dispatch does nothing on that message
return should_quit
while not PumpWaitingMessages():
pass

get window handler from started process

I see there's win32process.GetWindowThreadProcess() that gets a window handler and returns it's process id. Is there a way to do the opposite: get the window handler of a running process by it's process id? Something like win32gui.GetWindowHandler(processId) ?
Specifically What I'm trying to do:
I have a python script that runs an external program, lets say notepad.exe.
Notepad is fired when runProgram() method is called. I want to prevent this method from running Notepad more than once. I accomplish this in the following way, using win32process:
import win32process as process
import sys
PORTABLE_APPLICATION_LOCATION = "C:\\Windows\\system32\\notepad.exe"
processHandler = -1
def runProgram():
global processHandler
#don't run a process more than once
if (isLiveProcess(processHandler)):
#Bring focus back to running window!
return;
try:
startObj = process.STARTUPINFO()
myProcessTuple = process.CreateProcess(PORTABLE_APPLICATION_LOCATION,None,None,None,8,8,None,None,startObj)
processHandler = myProcessTuple[2]
except:
print(sys.exc_info[0])
def isLiveProcess(processHandler): #Process handler is dwProcessId
processList = process.EnumProcesses()
for aProcess in processList:
if (aProcess == processHandler):
return True
return False
runProgram()
This works as expected, but if the process is found to be already alive, I'd like to bring it's window back to front with win32gui

I dont think that Windows API provides a method for this , but you could iterate over all open windows , and find the one that belongs to you .
I have modified your program so it looks like this :
import win32process
import win32process as process
import win32gui
import sys
PORTABLE_APPLICATION_LOCATION = "C:\\Windows\\system32\\notepad.exe"
processHandler = -1
def callback(hwnd, procid):
if procid in win32process.GetWindowThreadProcessId(hwnd):
win32gui.SetForegroundWindow(hwnd)
def show_window_by_process(procid):
win32gui.EnumWindows(callback, procid)
def runProgram():
global processHandler
#don't run a process more than once
if (isLiveProcess(processHandler)):
#Bring focus back to running window!
show_window_by_process(processHandler)
return;
try:
startObj = process.STARTUPINFO()
myProcessTuple = process.CreateProcess(PORTABLE_APPLICATION_LOCATION,None,None,None,8,8,None,None,startObj)
processHandler = myProcessTuple[2]
except:
print(sys.exc_info[0])
def isLiveProcess(processHandler): #Process handler is dwProcessId
processList = process.EnumProcesses()
for aProcess in processList:
if (aProcess == processHandler):
return True
return False
runProgram()

libvlc and dbus interface

I'm trying a to create a basic media player using libvlc which will be controlled through dbus. I'm using the gtk and libvlc bindings for python. The code is based on the official example from the vlc website
The only thing I modified is to add the dbus interface to the vlc instance
# Create a single vlc.Instance() to be shared by (possible) multiple players.
instance = vlc.Instance()
print vlc.libvlc_add_intf(instance, "dbus"); // this is what i added. // returns 0 which is ok
All is well, the demo works and plays any video files. but for some reason the dbus control module doesn't work (I can't believe I just said the dreaded "doesn't work" words):
I already have the working client dbus code which binds to the MPRIS 2 interface. I can control a normal instance of a VLC media player - that works just fine, but with the above example nothing happens. The dbus control module is loaded properly, since libvlc_add_intf doesn't return an error and i can see the MPRIS 2 service in D-Feet (org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.vlc).
Even in D-Feet, trying to call any of the methods of the dbus vlc object returns no error but nothing happens.
Do I need to configure something else in order to make the dbus module control the libvlc player?
Thanks
UPDATE
It seems that creating the vlc Instance and setting a higher verbosity, shows that the DBus calls are received but they have no effect whatsoever on the player itself.
Also, adding the RC interface to the instance instead of DBus, has some problems too: When I run the example from the command line it drops me to the RC interface console where i can type the control commands, but it has the same behaviour as DBus - nothing happens, no error, nada, absolutely nothing. It ignores the commands completely.
Any thoughts?
UPDATE 2
Here is the code that uses libvlc to create a basic player:
from dbus.mainloop.glib import DBusGMainLoop
import gtk
import gobject
import sys
import vlc
from gettext import gettext as _
# Create a single vlc.Instance() to be shared by (possible) multiple players.
instance = vlc.Instance("--one-instance --verbose 2")
class VLCWidget(gtk.DrawingArea):
"""Simple VLC widget.
Its player can be controlled through the 'player' attribute, which
is a vlc.MediaPlayer() instance.
"""
def __init__(self, *p):
gtk.DrawingArea.__init__(self)
self.player = instance.media_player_new()
def handle_embed(*args):
if sys.platform == 'win32':
self.player.set_hwnd(self.window.handle)
else:
self.player.set_xwindow(self.window.xid)
return True
self.connect("map", handle_embed)
self.set_size_request(640, 480)
class VideoPlayer:
"""Example simple video player.
"""
def __init__(self):
self.vlc = VLCWidget()
def main(self, fname):
self.vlc.player.set_media(instance.media_new(fname))
w = gtk.Window()
w.add(self.vlc)
w.show_all()
w.connect("destroy", gtk.main_quit)
self.vlc.player.play()
DBusGMainLoop(set_as_default = True)
gtk.gdk.threads_init()
gobject.MainLoop().run()
if __name__ == '__main__':
if not sys.argv[1:]:
print "You must provide at least 1 movie filename"
sys.exit(1)
if len(sys.argv[1:]) == 1:
# Only 1 file. Simple interface
p=VideoPlayer()
p.main(sys.argv[1])
the script can be run from the command line like:
python example_vlc.py file.avi
The client code which connects to the vlc dbus object is too long to post so instead pretend that i'm using D-Feet to get the bus connection and post messages to it.
Once the example is running, i can see the players dbus interface in d-feet, but i am unable to control it. Is there anything else that i should add to the code above to make it work?

I can't see your implementation of your event loop, so it's hard to tell what might be causing commands to not be recognized or to be dropped. Is it possible your threads are losing the stacktrace information and are actually throwing exceptions?
You might get more responses if you added either a psuedo-code version of your event loop and DBus command parsing or a simplified version?

The working programs found on nullege.com use ctypes. One which acted as a server used rpyc. Ignoring that one.
The advantages of ctypes over dbus is a huge speed advantage (calling the C library code, not interacting using python) as well as not requiring the library to implement the dbus interface.
Didn't find any examples using gtk or dbus ;-(
Notable examples
PyNuvo vlc.py
Milonga Tango DJing program
Using dbus / gtk
dbus uses gobject mainloop, not gtk mainloop. Totally different beasts. Don't cross the streams! Some fixes:
Don't need this. Threads are evil.
gtk.gdk.threads_init()
gtk.main_quit() shouldn't work when using gobject Mainloop. gobject mainloop can't live within ur class.
if __name__ == '__main__':
loop = gobject.MainLoop()
loop.run()
Pass in loop into ur class. Then call to quit the app
loop.quit()
dbus (notify) / gtk working example
Not going to write ur vlc app for u. But here is a working example of using dbus / gtk. Just adapt to vlc. Assumed u took my advise on gtk above. As u know any instance of DesktopNotify must be called while using gobject.Mainloop . But u can place it anywhere within ur main class.
desktop_notify.py
from __future__ import print_function
import gobject
import time, dbus
from dbus.exceptions import DBusException
from dbus.mainloop.glib import DBusGMainLoop
class DesktopNotify(object):
""" Notify-OSD ubuntu's implementation has a 20 message limit. U've been warned. When queue is full, delete old message before adding new messages."""
#Static variables
dbus_loop = None
dbus_proxy = None
dbus_interface = None
loop = None
#property
def dbus_name(self):
return ("org.freedesktop.Notifications")
#property
def dbus_path(self):
return ("/org/freedesktop/Notifications")
#property
def dbus_interface(self):
return self.dbus_name
def __init__(self, strInit="initializing passive notification messaging")
strProxyInterface = "<class 'dbus.proxies.Interface'>"
""" Reinitializing dbus when making a 2nd class instance would be bad"""
if str(type(DesktopNotify.dbus_interface)) != strProxyInterface:
DesktopNotify.dbus_loop = DBusGMainLoop(set_as_default=True)
bus = dbus.SessionBus(mainloop=DesktopNotify.dbus_loop)
DesktopNotify.dbus_proxy = bus.get_object(self.dbus_name, self.dbus_path)
DesktopNotify.dbus_interface = dbus.Interface(DesktopNotify.dbus_proxy, self.dbus_interface )
DesktopNotify.dbus_proxy.connect_to_signal("NotificationClosed", self.handle_closed)
def handle_closed(self, *arg, **kwargs):
""" Notification closed by user or by code. Print message or not"""
lngNotificationId = int(arg[0])
lngReason = int(arg[1])
def pop(self, lngID):
""" ID stored in database, but i'm going to skip this and keep it simple"""
try:
DesktopNotify.dbus_interface.CloseNotification(lngID)
except DBusException as why:
print(self.__class__.__name__ + ".pop probably no message with id, lngID, why)
finally:
pass
def push(self, strMsgTitle, strMsg, dictField):
""" Create a new passive notification (took out retrying and handling full queues)"""
now = time.localtime( time.time() )
strMsgTime = strMsg + " " + time.asctime(now)
del now
strMsgTime = strMsgTime % dictField
app_name="[your app name]"
app_icon = ''
actions = ''
hint = ''
expire_timeout = 10000 #Use seconds * 1000
summary = strMsgTitle
body = strMsgTime
lngNotificationID = None
try:
lngNotificationID = DesktopNotify.dbus_interfacec.Notify(app_name, 0, app_icon, summary, body, actions, hint, expire_timeout)
except DBusException as why:
#Excellent spot to delete oldest notification and then retry
print(self.__class__.__name__ + ".push Being lazy. Posting passive notification was unsuccessful.", why)
finally:
#Excellent spot to add to database upon success
pass

How to capture frames from Apple iSight using Python and PyObjC?

I am trying to capture a single frame from the Apple iSight camera built into a Macbook Pro using Python (version 2.7 or 2.6) and the PyObjC (version 2.2).
As a starting point, I used this old StackOverflow question. To verify that it makes sense, I cross-referenced against Apple's MyRecorder example that it seems to be based on. Unfortunately, my script does not work.
My big questions are:
Am I initializing the camera correctly?
Am I starting the event loop correctly?
Was there any other setup I was supposed to do?
In the example script pasted below, the intended operation is that after calling startImageCapture(), I should start printing "Got a frame..." messages from the CaptureDelegate. However, the camera's light never turns on and the delegate's callback is never executed.
Also, there are no failures during startImageCapture(), all functions claim to succeed, and it successfully finds the iSight device. Analyzing the session object in pdb shows that it has valid input and output objects, the output has a delegate assigned, the device is not in use by another processes, and the session is marked as running after startRunning() is called.
Here's the code:
#!/usr/bin/env python2.7
import sys
import os
import time
import objc
import QTKit
import AppKit
from Foundation import NSObject
from Foundation import NSTimer
from PyObjCTools import AppHelper
objc.setVerbose(True)
class CaptureDelegate(NSObject):
def captureOutput_didOutputVideoFrame_withSampleBuffer_fromConnection_(self, captureOutput,
videoFrame, sampleBuffer,
connection):
# This should get called for every captured frame
print "Got a frame: %s" % videoFrame
class QuitClass(NSObject):
def quitMainLoop_(self, aTimer):
# Just stop the main loop.
print "Quitting main loop."
AppHelper.stopEventLoop()
def startImageCapture():
error = None
# Create a QT Capture session
session = QTKit.QTCaptureSession.alloc().init()
# Find iSight device and open it
dev = QTKit.QTCaptureDevice.defaultInputDeviceWithMediaType_(QTKit.QTMediaTypeVideo)
print "Device: %s" % dev
if not dev.open_(error):
print "Couldn't open capture device."
return
# Create an input instance with the device we found and add to session
input = QTKit.QTCaptureDeviceInput.alloc().initWithDevice_(dev)
if not session.addInput_error_(input, error):
print "Couldn't add input device."
return
# Create an output instance with a delegate for callbacks and add to session
output = QTKit.QTCaptureDecompressedVideoOutput.alloc().init()
delegate = CaptureDelegate.alloc().init()
output.setDelegate_(delegate)
if not session.addOutput_error_(output, error):
print "Failed to add output delegate."
return
# Start the capture
print "Initiating capture..."
session.startRunning()
def main():
# Open camera and start capturing frames
startImageCapture()
# Setup a timer to quit in 10 seconds (hack for now)
quitInst = QuitClass.alloc().init()
NSTimer.scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval_target_selector_userInfo_repeats_(10.0,
quitInst,
'quitMainLoop:',
None,
False)
# Start Cocoa's main event loop
AppHelper.runConsoleEventLoop(installInterrupt=True)
print "After event loop"
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()
Thanks for any help you can provide!

OK, I spent a day diving through the depths of PyObjC and got it working.
For future record, the reason the code in the question did not work: variable scope and garbage collection. The session variable was deleted when it fell out of scope, which happened before the event processor ran. Something must be done to retain it so it is not freed before it has time to run.
Moving everything into a class and making session a class variable made the callbacks start working. Additionally, the code below demonstrates getting the frame's pixel data into bitmap format and saving it via Cocoa calls, and also how to copy it back into Python's world-view as a buffer or string.
The script below will capture a single frame
#!/usr/bin/env python2.7
#
# camera.py -- by Trevor Bentley (02/04/2011)
#
# This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
#
# Run from the command line on an Apple laptop running OS X 10.6, this script will
# take a single frame capture using the built-in iSight camera and save it to disk
# using three methods.
#
import sys
import os
import time
import objc
import QTKit
from AppKit import *
from Foundation import NSObject
from Foundation import NSTimer
from PyObjCTools import AppHelper
class NSImageTest(NSObject):
def init(self):
self = super(NSImageTest, self).init()
if self is None:
return None
self.session = None
self.running = True
return self
def captureOutput_didOutputVideoFrame_withSampleBuffer_fromConnection_(self, captureOutput,
videoFrame, sampleBuffer,
connection):
self.session.stopRunning() # I just want one frame
# Get a bitmap representation of the frame using CoreImage and Cocoa calls
ciimage = CIImage.imageWithCVImageBuffer_(videoFrame)
rep = NSCIImageRep.imageRepWithCIImage_(ciimage)
bitrep = NSBitmapImageRep.alloc().initWithCIImage_(ciimage)
bitdata = bitrep.representationUsingType_properties_(NSBMPFileType, objc.NULL)
# Save image to disk using Cocoa
t0 = time.time()
bitdata.writeToFile_atomically_("grab.bmp", False)
t1 = time.time()
print "Cocoa saved in %.5f seconds" % (t1-t0)
# Save a read-only buffer of image to disk using Python
t0 = time.time()
bitbuf = bitdata.bytes()
f = open("python.bmp", "w")
f.write(bitbuf)
f.close()
t1 = time.time()
print "Python saved buffer in %.5f seconds" % (t1-t0)
# Save a string-copy of the buffer to disk using Python
t0 = time.time()
bitbufstr = str(bitbuf)
f = open("python2.bmp", "w")
f.write(bitbufstr)
f.close()
t1 = time.time()
print "Python saved string in %.5f seconds" % (t1-t0)
# Will exit on next execution of quitMainLoop_()
self.running = False
def quitMainLoop_(self, aTimer):
# Stop the main loop after one frame is captured. Call rapidly from timer.
if not self.running:
AppHelper.stopEventLoop()
def startImageCapture(self, aTimer):
error = None
print "Finding camera"
# Create a QT Capture session
self.session = QTKit.QTCaptureSession.alloc().init()
# Find iSight device and open it
dev = QTKit.QTCaptureDevice.defaultInputDeviceWithMediaType_(QTKit.QTMediaTypeVideo)
print "Device: %s" % dev
if not dev.open_(error):
print "Couldn't open capture device."
return
# Create an input instance with the device we found and add to session
input = QTKit.QTCaptureDeviceInput.alloc().initWithDevice_(dev)
if not self.session.addInput_error_(input, error):
print "Couldn't add input device."
return
# Create an output instance with a delegate for callbacks and add to session
output = QTKit.QTCaptureDecompressedVideoOutput.alloc().init()
output.setDelegate_(self)
if not self.session.addOutput_error_(output, error):
print "Failed to add output delegate."
return
# Start the capture
print "Initiating capture..."
self.session.startRunning()
def main(self):
# Callback that quits after a frame is captured
NSTimer.scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval_target_selector_userInfo_repeats_(0.1,
self,
'quitMainLoop:',
None,
True)
# Turn on the camera and start the capture
self.startImageCapture(None)
# Start Cocoa's main event loop
AppHelper.runConsoleEventLoop(installInterrupt=True)
print "Frame capture completed."
if __name__ == "__main__":
test = NSImageTest.alloc().init()
test.main()

QTKit is deprecated and PyObjC is a big dependency (and seems to be tricky to build if you want it in HomeBrew). Plus PyObjC did not have most of AVFoundation so I created a simple camera extension for Python that uses AVFoundation to record a video or snap a picture, it requires no dependencies (Cython intermediate files are committed to avoid the need to have Cython for most users).
It should be possible to build it like this:
pip install -e git+https://github.com/dashesy/pyavfcam.git
Then we can use it to take a picture:
import pyavfcam
# Open the default video source
cam = pyavfcam.AVFCam(sinks='image')
frame = cam.snap_picture('test.jpg') # frame is a memory buffer np.asarray(frame) can retrieve
Not related to this question, but if the AVFCam class is sub-classed, the overridden methods will be called with the result.

Python - Windows Shutdown Events

When using win32api.setConsoleCtrlHandler(), I'm able to receive shutdown/logoff/etc events from Windows, and cleanly shut down my app.
However, this only works when running the app under python.exe (i.e., it has a console window), but not under pythonw.exe (no console window).
Is there an equivalent way in Windows to receive these events when you have no console and no window to receive them? Or, is there a programmatic way to hide the console window?
To be clear - my goal is to be able to successfully receive Windows shutdown/logoff/etc events, without having any kind of console window showing.
EDIT:
I've been playing around, and I've gotten quite a bit further. I wrote a piece of test code for this. When I do a taskkill /im pythonw.exe - it will receive the message.
However, when I do a shutdown, restart, or logoff on Windows, I do not get any messages.
Here's the whole thing:
""" Testing Windows shutdown events """
import win32con
import win32api
import win32gui
import sys
import time
def log_info(msg):
""" Prints """
print msg
f = open("c:\\test.log", "a")
f.write(msg + "\n")
f.close()
def wndproc(hwnd, msg, wparam, lparam):
log_info("wndproc: %s" % msg)
if __name__ == "__main__":
log_info("*** STARTING ***")
hinst = win32api.GetModuleHandle(None)
wndclass = win32gui.WNDCLASS()
wndclass.hInstance = hinst
wndclass.lpszClassName = "testWindowClass"
messageMap = { win32con.WM_QUERYENDSESSION : wndproc,
win32con.WM_ENDSESSION : wndproc,
win32con.WM_QUIT : wndproc,
win32con.WM_DESTROY : wndproc,
win32con.WM_CLOSE : wndproc }
wndclass.lpfnWndProc = messageMap
try:
myWindowClass = win32gui.RegisterClass(wndclass)
hwnd = win32gui.CreateWindowEx(win32con.WS_EX_LEFT,
myWindowClass,
"testMsgWindow",
0,
0,
0,
win32con.CW_USEDEFAULT,
win32con.CW_USEDEFAULT,
win32con.HWND_MESSAGE,
0,
hinst,
None)
except Exception, e:
log_info("Exception: %s" % str(e))
if hwnd is None:
log_info("hwnd is none!")
else:
log_info("hwnd: %s" % hwnd)
while True:
win32gui.PumpWaitingMessages()
time.sleep(1)
I feel like I'm pretty close here, but I'm definitely missing something!

The problem here was that the HWND_MESSAGE window type doesn't actually receive broadcast messages - like the WM_QUERYENDSESSION and WM_ENDSESSION.
So instead of specifying win32con.HWND_MESSAGE for the "parent window" parameter of CreateWindowEx(), I just specified 0.
Basically, this creates an actual window, but I never show it, so it's effectively the same thing. Now, I can successfully receive those broadcast messages and shut down the app properly.

If you don't have a console, setting a console handler of course can't work. You can receive system events on a GUI (non-console) program by making another window (doesn't have to be visible), making sure you have a normal "message pump" on it serving, and handling WM_QUERYENDSESSION -- that's the message telling your window about shutdown and logoff events (and your window can try to push back against the end-session by returning 0 for this message). ("Windows Services" are different from normal apps -- if that's what you're writing, see an example here).