Using PrintWindow to capture screen or to take snapshot of a window!

PrintWindow is a cool function which helps us in printing a windows contents to a DC. Normal usage will be that we pass a printer DC, but here we pass a custom DC with a bitmap selected into this DC. Internally PrintWindow uses WM_PRINT and WM_PRINTCLIENT(This is my assumption).

Here is a simple function which uses PrintWindow to get screen shots of a given window and prints the resultant capture bitmap to a given window.

// Sample call CaptureWindow( FindWindow(...), &MyDlg )
void CaptureWindow( CWnd* WindowToCapture, CWnd* PaintToWindow )
{
    if( !WindowToCapture ||
        !PaintToWindow ||
        !IsWindow( WindowToCapture->m_hWnd ) ||
        !IsWindow( PaintToWindow->m_hWnd ))
        return;

    CDC* WindowToCaptureDC = WindowToCapture->GetWindowDC();
    CDC* PaintToWindowDC = PaintToWindow->GetDC();

    CDC CaptureDC;
    VERIFY( CaptureDC.CreateCompatibleDC( WindowToCaptureDC ));
    const int RestorePoint = CaptureDC.SaveDC();

    CRect CaptureWndRect;
    WindowToCapture->GetWindowRect( &CaptureWndRect );

    CBitmap CaptureBmp;
    VERIFY( CaptureBmp.CreateCompatibleBitmap( WindowToCaptureDC, CaptureWndRect.Width(), CaptureWndRect.Height() ));
    CaptureDC.SelectObject( &CaptureBmp );

    // Capture window now
    if( WindowToCapture->PrintWindow( &CaptureDC, 0 ))
    {
        CRect PaintToWindowRect;
        PaintToWindow->GetClientRect( &PaintToWindowRect );

        // To prevent unwanted stretching while drawing
        const int BltWidth = min( PaintToWindowRect.Width(), CaptureWndRect.Width() );
        const int BltHeight = min( PaintToWindowRect.Height(), CaptureWndRect.Height() );

        PaintToWindow->Invalidate();
        PaintToWindow->UpdateWindow();
        PaintToWindowDC->StretchBlt( PaintToWindowRect.left,
                                     PaintToWindowRect.top,
                                     BltWidth,
                                     BltHeight,
                                     &CaptureDC,
                                     0,
                                     0,
                                     CaptureWndRect.Width(),
                                     CaptureWndRect.Height(),
                                     SRCCOPY );
    }// End if

    CaptureDC.RestoreDC( RestorePoint );
    CaptureDC.DeleteDC();

    WindowToCapture->ReleaseDC( WindowToCaptureDC );
    PaintToWindow->ReleaseDC( PaintToWindowDC );
}

If you need to print just the client area of a window use PW_CLIENTONLY in nFlags parameter to this function! Note that if you are using PW_CLIENTONLY then change from GetWindowDC to GetDC.

A sample project for download (rename to zip). But there is a problem while capturing desktop window, whole desktop window painting goes haywire. I am working on it, will update this post with my fixes!

How to get color of a pixel from any Bitmap?

It’s easy to get color of a pixel from a bitmap. Here is a function which does this…

#include
#include

// Returns Pixel color from bitmap
COLORREF GetPixelValueFromBitmap( const int x, const int y, CBitmap& bmp )
{
// DC for desktop
CDC dcDesktop;
dcDesktop.Attach( ::GetDC( GetDesktopWindow() ));

// Create a DC compatible with desktop or any other existing window
CDC dc;
dc.CreateCompatibleDC( &dcDesktop );

// Save the DC settings here, so that we can restore it later
const int nRestorePoint = dc.SaveDC();

// Select the bitmap into the DC
dc.SelectObject( &bmp );

// Now get the pixels value from the DC
const COLORREF clr = dc.GetPixel( x, y );

// Restore DC settings
dc.RestoreDC( nRestorePoint );

// Return pixel value/color
return clr;
}// End GetPixelValueFromBitmap

// main function
int main()
{
// initialize MFC and print an error on failure
if (!AfxWinInit(::GetModuleHandle(NULL), NULL, ::GetCommandLine(), 0))
{
std::cerr << _T("Fatal Error: MFC initialization failed") << std::endl; return 1; } // Prepare a bitmap CBitmap bmp; // Provide your own bitmap id bmp.LoadBitmap( IDB_BITMAP1 ); // Get color of given pixel from given bitmap COLORREF clr = GetPixelValueFromBitmap( 0, 2, bmp ); // Split up the colors and see const int Red = GetRValue( clr ); const int Green = GetGValue( clr ); const int Blue = GetBValue( clr ); return 0; }// End main[/sourcecode]