Read the contents of a ComboBox (or any other windows control)

I have a program that reads the contacts from my phone, but I can't export them.

I'd like to use another program to read the contents of the controls on the original program. In this case, I would like to export the content of a dropdown list (combobox), containing these contacts. Can someone recommend a good program for this or recommend another method?

I know I saw something for this last year on lifehacker.com in a collection of diagnostic tools, but I can't find it now.

windows

Homer

Posted 2010-04-12T14:49:42.020

Reputation: 559

To voters: this is not off-topic. The question here is how to export the content of a dropdown list from any program (in his case, a program reading contacts from phone). Voting to reopen. – Gnoupi – 2010-04-12T15:00:52.200

2Sorry - misread it as being an app on the phone. – ChrisF – 2010-04-12T15:12:48.150

2Correct, it's a general question for scraping Windows control values. I just added my immediate use for some context. Thanks for pointing that out. Is this dead now? – Homer – 2010-04-12T15:19:49.197

1no it is not dead, it is going through the re-opening process right now.. It should be re-opened soon. – heavyd – 2010-04-12T15:35:02.990

Answers

I'm not sure if this is what you need since you said it was for your phone but the tag lists windows. Nirsoft provides a tool called SysExporter which lets you export items in windows lists. A better description is provided on the site.

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/sysexp.html

James T

Posted 2010-04-12T14:49:42.020

Reputation: 8 515

Seems to fit the need, thank you! I can indeed get content from combobox, lists, etc. – Gnoupi – 2010-06-20T09:24:26.833

@Gnoupi Excellent. Glad I could help. – James T – 2010-06-20T09:36:01.973

Awesome, I'm a little late on marking it as the answer, but this is it. Thanks! – Homer – 2010-08-03T14:33:55.387

http://mwinapi.sourceforge.net/tools.html lists a tool called ContensSaver# that can export combo boxes as well when you drag the crosshair onto them. It is written in C# and is open source, so if you need to do things like that automatically, you can see how they are doing it.

NirSoft SysExporter is a good option as well (if you do not need to adapt it)

mihi

Posted 2010-04-12T14:49:42.020

Reputation: 3 217

Less pleasant to use than SysExporter, from what I tried, but indeed, open source can be interesting if needed to change something from it. +1 – Gnoupi – 2010-06-20T12:39:27.513