Programmatically opening Tools Menu of F12 Internet Explorer Developer tools Using PostMessage and ALT+T

Question

I'm trying to programmatically open the pull-down menu, "Tools", of the F12 Developer Tools Of an instance of Internet Explorer by using a series of calls to the function PostMessage simulating the action (ALT+T) as described below.

I have the handle of the IE instance and it's children windows. I'm using this code to simulate ALT+T which does the intended work on similar windows.

PostMessage(hDevTools, WM_SYSKEYDOWN, VK_MENU, 0x20380001);
PostMessage(hDevTools, WM_SYSKEYDOWN, 'T'    , 0x20000001);
PostMessage(hDevTools, WM_SYSCHAR   , 'T'    , 0x20000001);
PostMessage(hDevTools, WM_SYSKEYUP  , 'T'    , 0xE0000001);
PostMessage(hDevTools, WM_SYSKEYUP  , VK_MENU, 0xC0380001);

My problem is that I don't know what handle should I post these messages to.
I used Microsoft Spy++ to find the handle of IE Dev Tools window and it's children and I've tried PostMessaging to most of them, but no luck. the Tools menu is not opening.

I should add that (for test purposes) I have PostMessaged these combinations to the document window of the Internet Explorer and the Tools Menu of the main window of IE was opened.

Have you tried SendInput? Much of Internet Explorer does not use HWNDs, and handles keyboard input directly. — Eric Brown
@Eric Brown, Thanks for your reply. I should have mentioned that SendInput was not an option. — Guy

Guy Guy · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-21T14:11:42

I found the window handle. It's a window with class name 'ToolbarWindow32' which is a child of another window with class name'IEDEVTOOLSMENU'.

Sending the above PostMessages to this window solves my problem.

Programmatically opening Tools Menu of F12 Internet Explorer Developer tools Using PostMessage and ALT+T

1 Answers