I was going to recommend AHK as well, but Tony beat me to it.  We use AHK here 
for automating logins to customers.  It basically interacts with your desktop 
based on your script.  

-----Original Message-----
From: u2-users-boun...@listserver.u2ug.org 
[mailto:u2-users-boun...@listserver.u2ug.org] On Behalf Of Tony Gravagno
Sent: Wednesday, June 26, 2013 6:55 PM
To: u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org
Subject: Re: [U2] Monitoring Program: Can This Be Done?

Dove-tailing with Ian's response, AHK would be an excellent solution,
not only for acting on the client PC but also for monitoring window
usage, PC transition to screensaver or hibernate, etc. It's also free
- but a hefty learning curve if you're not familiar with the scripting
language.

To answer your question, yes, with C# this is also do-able, free, and
with no new languages to learn. If you want to do this on your own,
find some freeware that listens for Win32 events - though that area
can present as much of a learning curve as AHK. You want a tray app
that runs on system startup or with the SB client, to identify the
SBClient window when it opens, then check for various events like
minimize and window activated. You also want a timer that periodically
checks to see if the screensaver is running. (The first mechanism is
reactive, the second is proactive.) You will need to DllImport
"user32.dll" for this.

A search on the topic reveals many hits, including this helpful blog
with a C# solution that you should be able to tweak for your purposes:
http://bit.ly/1afWhF3

If you do Not want to do that on your own, you can email me to discuss
development services.

HTH

Tony Gravagno   
Nebula Research and Development         
TG@ remove.pleaseNebula-RnD.com         
Nebula R&D sells mv.NET and other Pick/MultiValue products      
worldwide, and provides related development services    
http://Nebula-RnD.com/blog      
Visit http://PickWiki.com! Contribute!          
http://Twitter.com/TonyGravagno         
http://groups.google.com/group/mvdbms   



> From: McGowan, Ian 
> For your original question, I don't know about how to capture the
> timestamp for SB activity, but http://www.autohotkey.com/ is an
> amazing piece of software that can definitely switch to the SBClient
> window and hit escape a bunch of times.  I have used it several
times
> to 'scrape' data from one system and plug it into another, when more
> elegant solutions wouldn't work for whatever reason...


> From: Al DeWitt 
> I have been asked to inquire if there is a way I can write a C#
program
> to be installed on certain (shop floor) PCs to log SBClient activity
> (keystrokes?) with a timestamp.  This program would then read the
> last activity timestamp, compare it to the current time and if the
> interim is greater than a certain number of minutes execute a series
of
> Escape strokes to back the app out to the close screen and thus free
> up licenses.

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