Returning the Cursor Position within the Screen Area

Keelan,

hiGetScreenPoint gets the screen (pixel) coordinates but only within the drawing area of the specified window.

There's no function to get the absolute pixel coordinate on the screen. There have been a few requests for this in the past (mostly related to trying to position a form relative to the cursor, I think), but these enhancements have not been implemented (they haven't been planned).

Why do you need this?

Regards,

Andrew

Hi Andrew,

Ah I see. And the reason being is exactly as you say, trying to position a form relative to the cursor. 

I understand you can change the default location of forms, but yes I was specifically looking to position forms relative to the cursor. 

Do you know of any other strategy or workaround for such a issue? Or do I have to go back to the drawing board?

Thanks,

Keelan

Hi Keelan,

How about this:

hiGetCIWindow()->formRelativeTo="currentWindow"
hiGetCIWindow()->formPlacement="center"

The documentation covers the other values - but the formPlacement could be left/right/top/bottom too.

Maybe that gives you the kind of flexibility you want? There's also a similar setting for optionFormRelativeTo and optionFormPlacement. They are set as attributes on the CIW window.

Andrew

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for the information. I've come across this before alright but it is not exactly what I was looking for. 

I went and did a bit of further digging and found out I could get the mouse coordinates using Python and then utilising this information via Cadence.

I've done up to following code that achieved this:

The Cadence Script:

procedure( getMouseCoordinates()
prog(
(
pythonScript pythonScriptProcess pythonOutput tmp mouseXpos mouseYpos
)
pythonScript = "python ~kdolan/Python/getMouseCoordinates.py"
pythonScriptProcess = ipcBeginProcess(pythonScript) ;execute my python script
ipcWait(pythonScriptProcess) ;wait for scipt to complete
pythonOutput = ipcReadProcess(pythonScriptProcess) ;store script output
if(ipcIsAliveProcess(pythonScriptProcess) == t ;if child still exists
then
ipcCloseProcess(pythonScriptProcess) ;close child
)
if(rexMatchp("Errno" pythonOutput) || rexMatchp("SyntaxError" pythonOutput)
then
printf("\nERROR --> [getMouseCoordinates.il] A problem occured when executing the command: %L \n", pythonScript)
return(nil)
)
rexCompile(" *")
pythonOutput = rexReplace(pythonOutput " " 0)
pythonOutput = parseString(pythonOutput "\n") ;format script output
foreach(line pythonOutput ;step through each line of script output
rexCompile(" *")
line = rexReplace(line "" 0)

if(rexMatchp("c_int" line) == t
then
tmp = parseString(line ")")
mouseXpos = atoi(nth(1 parseString(nth(0 tmp) "("))) ;store mouse X position
mouseYpos = atoi(nth(1 parseString(nth(1 tmp) "("))) ;store mouse Y position
)
)

return(list(mouseXpos mouseYpos))
))

The Python Script:

import sys
from ctypes import *
Xlib = CDLL("libX11.so.6")
display = Xlib.XOpenDisplay(None)
if display == 0: sys.exit(2)
w = Xlib.XRootWindow(display, c_int(0))
(root_id, child_id) = (c_uint32(), c_uint32())
(root_x, root_y, win_x, win_y) = (c_int(), c_int(), c_int(), c_int())
mask = c_uint()
ret = Xlib.XQueryPointer(display, c_uint32(w), byref(root_id), byref(child_id),
byref(root_x), byref(root_y),
byref(win_x), byref(win_y), byref(mask))
if ret == 0: sys.exit(1)
print child_id.value
print root_x, root_y