Track computer desktop in MATLAB

I want to see my computer desktop in MATLAB and track all windows that are open on computer desktop. Is there any possiblity to see the pc desktop in matlab?

Answer 1

[Daniel Shub]

What do you mean by see? In Linux you can use wmctrl to get a list of all open windows. I am not sure if the Mac window manager is based on X or if it is EWMH compliant. I am guessing the Windows window manager is not.

Answer 2

[Jan]

Do you want to capture the contents of the screen as pictures?

See: FEX: screencapture

[nopel0n]

I want to see the computer desktop like a movie for further processing. I tried to do that with a virtual webcam, but matlab couldn't recognise my virtual webcam.

Thanks

[Walter Roberson]

Ah, you want to do infinite recursion then, since the MATLAB session showing the windows would be one of the windows on the desktop...

[nopel0n]

Exactly. Any idea how I might be able to do that?

[Jan]

@nopel0n: What's wrong with screencapture?

Answer 3

[Walter Roberson]

You cannot do what you ask in any version of MS Windows that is currently supported. As best I recall, all of the versions of MS Windows that are currently supported have Microsoft's built-in DRM (Digital Rights Management) protection, that prevent you from taking screen snapshots of areas that are under DRM protection (such as DVDs)

But even beyond that, if you are working with Vista or Windows 7 or Windows 8, then getframe() can return odd contents for windows that are not under your control. Some strange interaction with themes and different DirectX versions and similar complications.