I am building a Perl-based application under Win32 (say, Windows 7/8/10) where I need to monitor what's going on in a particular region of the desktop display.

However, the region to be monitored is generated by another application and its output can be of a variable size and a variable location on the display, although it will always be a rectangular region within a standard window (but that Window can be of variable size).

So, I'm intending to have some mechanism where I can use a rectangular selection area/fence (much how the Windows 'Snipping Tool' works) to define an area of interest on the desktop. However, what I want returned from the selected area is not the content (as the Snipping Tool provides) but more the rectangular region's position/dimension information; I envisage this information to be presented like it is often specified in X11-parlance, as a "WxH+x+Y" string.

There is a tool I use under Windows called Meazure (see https://www.cthing.com/Meazure.asp) which captures the information I want but I can't retrieve the info very easily from that tool.

Hence, I'm looking to see if there's a Perl-ish way I can do what I need... If I'm lucky, there might be a CLI tool to do what I'm describing (I found one of those for Linux/X11/C (see https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=85378) but couldn't find anything similar for Windows... so far(!)).

Maybe something can be done with a Perl/Tk canvas that has a transparent background (is that even possible?) or something? Hmm... much work in that approach, I fear...

Anyway, I'd appreciate any thoughts.

Using Windows7-32bit/SP1 and Windows8-32bit, ActiveState Perl v5.16.3 and v5.20.2.


John

Edit: Updated with the version of Perl I use at home (v5.20.2)

In reply to How Do I Select An Area of the Win32 Desktop and Return Its Size and Location? by ozboomer

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