Can I catch the lost focus (deactivation) of a PowerPoint slideshow window due to a hyperlink click?

Question

how to catch the lost focus (deactivation) of the current slideshow. In my slideshow a slide has a hyperlink. When the link is clicked, the default browser is opened to the respective page and, of course, my slideshow losses the focus. When the browser is closed, the slideshow automatically receives the focus. Is there any way to catch either the slideshow window deactivate or activate event? I tried any possible events (WindowActivate, WindowDeactivate) without success, as they are referring to the presentation, not to the slideshow. Or maybe any way to detect that a link was clicked?

Answer 1

You can use UI Automation API to do this.
First add two references: UIAutomationClient and UIAutomationTypes, they are generally located in:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework.NETFramework\v4.8
The version depends on which version you have installed.
Then, you can use the following code to detect whether the slide is in focus.

        static void Main(string[] args)  
        {  
            Automation.AddAutomationFocusChangedEventHandler(OnFocusChangedHandler);  
            Console.ReadLine();  
        }  
        private static void OnFocusChangedHandler(object src, AutomationFocusChangedEventArgs args)  
        {  
            AutomationElement element = src as AutomationElement;  
            if (element != null)  
            {  
                try  
                {  
                    string name = element.Current.Name;  
                    string id = element.Current.AutomationId;  
  
                    int processId = element.Current.ProcessId;  
                    using (Process process = Process.GetProcessById(processId))  
                    {  
                        if (name.Contains("Slide"))  
                        {  
                            Console.WriteLine(process.MainWindowTitle);  
                            Console.WriteLine("  Name: {0}, Id: {1}, Process: {2}", name, id, process.ProcessName);  
                        }  
                    }  
                }  
                catch (ElementNotAvailableException)  
                {  
                    Console.WriteLine("this app has closed");  
                }  
            }  

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