powershellintptr

Powershell - Get current Active Window title and set it as a string


I want to get my Active window's processName and MainWindowTitle then set it as a string Variable so that I can use it for later use, such in Filenaming.

My code does work but
(1) It can't display the $screenTitle
(2) There are some instances that MainWindowTitle is empty, but won't proceed to the If Condition even though I removed the $processNaming.

What have I missed here?

$code = @'
    [DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError=true, CharSet=CharSet.Auto)]
   public static extern IntPtr GetForegroundWindow();
    [DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError=true, CharSet=CharSet.Auto)]
       public static extern Int32 GetWindowThreadProcessId(IntPtr hWnd,out
Int32 lpdwProcessId);
'@

Add-Type $code -Name Utils -Namespace Win32
$myPid = [IntPtr]::Zero;

Do{

$hwnd = [Win32.Utils]::GetForegroundWindow()
$null = [Win32.Utils]::GetWindowThreadProcessId($hwnd, [ref] $myPid)

$processNaming = Get-Process | Where-Object ID -eq $myPid | Select-Object processName
#$processNaming
$screenTitle = Get-Process | Where-Object ID -eq $myPid | Select-Object MainWindowTitle

If($screenTitle -ne $Null){
    $processNaming
    $screenTitle
}
Else {
    Write-Host "No Screen Title"
}

Start-Sleep -Milliseconds 3000

}While($True)

Solution

  • The issue with your code where $screenTitle is not being displayed happens because of how PowerShell displays objects in the console, currently you're trying to output 2 objects having different properties ProcessName and MainWindowTitle but only one is being displayed (the first one). See these answers for context on why these happens:

    To overcome this, what you should do instead is return a single object with 2 properties this way you should see them correctly displayed.

    $myPid = [IntPtr]::Zero;
    
    Do {
        $hwnd = [Win32.Utils]::GetForegroundWindow()
        $null = [Win32.Utils]::GetWindowThreadProcessId($hwnd, [ref] $myPid)
    
        $process = Get-Process -Id $myPid
    
        If($process.MainWindowTitle) {
            $process | Select-Object ProcessName, MainWindowTitle
        }
        else {
            Write-Host ("No Screen Title for '{0}'" -f $process.ProcessName)
        }
    
        Start-Sleep -Seconds 1
    } While($True)
    

    If you want to output strings instead of an object from your loop you could do something like:

    'ProcessName: {0} - MainWindowTitle: {1}' -f $process.ProcessName, $process.MainWindowTitle