I could use some tips on capturing streaming text from ext app plz

[Mechelsdic]

Using XP Pro, I would like to write an app that captures streaming text from another app that uses IE Rich Text Box windows into something I can save in a text or rtf file. I barely know where to start. hWnd, and what other methods will I need to use to achieve this? The window I need to capture posts text from other online users similar to a chat window so it is constantly being updated and a basic screenshot won't do. I need to be able to capture current text, plus lines of text as they are posted into the window and of course toggle the capture on and off. I can get the name of the RichTextBox using a viewer but have no idea what to do with it.

Any help on this would be great.

Mechelsdic

The more we know, the more we know there's more to know.

 

[bodhi]

I think what you want to do is to redirect a pipe from the other application to one you create within your own application.

This is fairly straightforward if the pipe is stdout or stderr (as in command line apps for example). While I've never tried this in other cases I presume that, provided you have an interface to the pipe, you can redirect its output to the pipe you create.

Information on creating pipes for redirection can be found here :

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;NL;q173085

An excellent example (albeit in VB) of capturing output from a shelled program can be found here :

http://www.developersdomain.com/vb/articles/redirectpipe.htm

Hope this helps.