Re: [perl-win32-gui-users] FindWindow and SendMessage

[Robert M. <rob...@us...>]

On 16/08/2007, Perl Rob <pe...@co...> wrote:
> Well, I answered my own question, so I thought I'd post the answer
> in case it helps someone else who wants to close a window in this
> manner. Turns out I had to create a quoted word list and add
> WM_CLOSE to it (as a part of my "use Win32::GUI" line):
>
> use Win32::GUI qw( WM_CLOSE );
>
>
> To be perfectly honest, I don't understand *why* that fixed the
> problem, but it did. I couldn't get any windows to close until I
> did that=97now I can close any window (that allows it) by finding
> its handle and sending it the WM_CLOSE message.

That's the syntax for getting Win32::GUI to import constants into the
caller's namespace (in fact it's a very common perl syntax in
general).  Read the documentation for Win32::GUI::Constants for more
information.

If you had a 'use warnings;' line, then your earlier attempts would
have given you more information about why they were not working.

[As an aside you shouldn't blindly assume that sending a window a
WM_CLOSE will close it - an application is perfectly entitled to catch
the WM_CLOSE message and not close the window - for example many
programs catch the WM_CLOSE and pop up a dialog asking whether the
user really wants to exit (annoying, but it happens) - this is perhaps
more useful if the application is reporting that there are unsaved
changes and asking if the user wants to save them before exiting.]

Regards,
Rob.