[Jeff Binder]

I've been scouring Apple's documentation, Google, and the frameworks on my system trying to find out how to get a list of all open windows on the system (like QuartzDebug does).

I've been trying to figure out what QuartzDebug does. It seems to call a mysterious function called CGSSetDebugOptions(), then read the list from the file /tmp/WindowServer.winfo.out. I assume that CGS means CoreGraphicsService. I found a brief mention of this on Apple's developer site. It just said that it's a private framework used for accessing the Window Server. Does anyone have any info on this/any other ideas?

[Angus_D]

CGS is a private API that is part of the CoreGraphics framework for interfacing with the windowserver. Your best bet is disassembling that and figuring out what it does.

[kamprath]

Originally posted by Jeff Binder:
<STRONG>I've been scouring Apple's documentation, Google, and the frameworks on my system trying to find out how to get a list of all open windows on the system (like QuartzDebug does).

I've been trying to figure out what QuartzDebug does. It seems to call a mysterious function called CGSSetDebugOptions(), then read the list from the file /tmp/WindowServer.winfo.out. I assume that CGS means CoreGraphicsService. I found a brief mention of this on Apple's developer site. It just said that it's a private framework used for accessing the Window Server. Does anyone have any info on this/any other ideas?</STRONG>

You could spend days trying to disassemble things and trying to decode the interface, just to have it break in the next system update. Right now, the global window managment API is *private*.

Myself and a few other developpers have a request in with Apple to open up the global window list API so that 3rd party utilities can interface with it (much like the Dock does). Your best bet is submitting a feature request through bugreporter.appl.com and add to the ground swell of developpers requesting public & supported global window list API. They will tell you that your is a duplicate request - that's OK, what is important here is to show Apple the numbers of people who want this.

Michael Kamprath