TDWinInfo

Sure enough building a window frame might not sound like a complicated task, but each window is fitted with a variety of elements. Programmers need to carefully take them into account, but there are also specialized tools like TDWinInfo which can provide various details, such as the handle and class.

The application comes in a pretty lightweight package, and you’re not even taken through a setup process to ensure functionality. Registry entries are not modified during runtime, so there’s nothing to worry about if you decide to carry it around on a thumb drive to use on other computers besides your own.

Needless to say that the application is not your average tool, with some programming skill required to understand the provided details. This doesn’t mean it’s difficult to use. On the contrary, details are shown in a clean window which stays on top of everything else so that it’s easy to acquire details of nearly all elements on the desktop.

Effort on your behalf drops to a minimum, especially because you simply need to position the cursor over elements of interest to generate details. The window shows mouse position, handle of window, as well as class of window, elements which instantly update. Note that some windows are packed with more elements, thus generating a different handle and class.

Unfortunately, there’s no option to freeze the display to easily write down details of interest. What’s more, there isn’t even an option to have details sent to the clipboard. If the application meets your demands, a neat trick is to assign a hotkey command to its shortcut to launch regardless of Explorer location.

Taking everything into consideration, we can state that TDWinInfo is a practical solution when you want to build specific frames, but don’t really know how classes are defined, or what handles to use. It’s lightweight, easy to use, making it worth your while overall.