Global mouse event handler

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I have the following code which I got from somewhere to capture mouse events. I modified it and made an event handler so that I can subscribe to it. The mouse events are captured correctly. But it never fires the event-handler. Can anybody figure out whats wrong with the code?

public static class MouseHook
{
    public static event EventHandler MouseAction = delegate { };

    public static void Start() => _hookID = SetHook(_proc);
    public static void stop() => UnhookWindowsHookEx(_hookID);

    private static LowLevelMouseProc _proc = HookCallback;
    private static IntPtr _hookID = IntPtr.Zero;

    private static IntPtr SetHook(LowLevelMouseProc proc)
    {
        using (Process curProcess = Process.GetCurrentProcess())
        using (ProcessModule curModule = curProcess.MainModule)
        {
            return SetWindowsHookEx(WH_MOUSE_LL, proc,
              GetModuleHandle(curModule.ModuleName), 0);
        }
    }

    private delegate IntPtr LowLevelMouseProc(int nCode, IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam);

    private static IntPtr HookCallback(int nCode, IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam)
    {
        if (nCode >= 0 && MouseMessages.WM_LBUTTONDOWN == (MouseMessages)wParam)
        {
           MSLLHOOKSTRUCT hookStruct = (MSLLHOOKSTRUCT)Marshal.PtrToStructure(lParam, typeof(MSLLHOOKSTRUCT));  
           MouseAction(null,new EventArgs());
        }
        return CallNextHookEx(_hookID, nCode, wParam, lParam);
    }

    private const int WH_MOUSE_LL = 14;

    private enum MouseMessages
    {
        WM_LBUTTONDOWN = 0x0201,
        WM_LBUTTONUP   = 0x0202,
        WM_MOUSEMOVE   = 0x0200,
        WM_MOUSEWHEEL  = 0x020A,
        WM_RBUTTONDOWN = 0x0204,
        WM_RBUTTONUP   = 0x0205
    }

    [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
    private struct POINT
    {
        public int x;
        public int y;
    }

    [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
    private struct MSLLHOOKSTRUCT
    {
        public POINT pt;
        public uint mouseData, flags, time;
        public IntPtr dwExtraInfo;
    }

    [DllImport("user32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto, SetLastError = true)]
    private static extern IntPtr SetWindowsHookEx(int idHook,
      LowLevelMouseProc lpfn, IntPtr hMod, uint dwThreadId);

    [DllImport("user32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto, SetLastError = true)]
    [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)]
    private static extern bool UnhookWindowsHookEx(IntPtr hhk);

    [DllImport("user32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto, SetLastError = true)]
    private static extern IntPtr CallNextHookEx(IntPtr hhk, int nCode,
      IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam);

    [DllImport("kernel32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto, SetLastError = true)]
    private static extern IntPtr GetModuleHandle(string lpModuleName);
}

I subscribe to it like this.

MouseHook.Start();  
MouseHook.MouseAction += new EventHandler(Event);

Function receiving the event.

private void Event(object sender, EventArgs e) => Console.WriteLine("Left mouse click!"); 

Update: I put together the working code in to a open source nuget package for user action hooks.

3 Answers

For any future visitor:

I've implemented a thread level mouse hook.

enter image description here

_process = Process.Start(@"c:\windows\notepad.exe");
//_process = Process.Start(@"c:\windows\syswow64\notepad.exe"); // works also with 32-bit

_mouseHook = new MouseHook(_process.Id);
_mouseHook.MessageReceived += MouseHook_MessageReceived;
_mouseHook.Install();

...

private void MouseHook_MessageReceived(object sender, MouseMessageEventArgs e)
{
    Debug.WriteLine($"Mouse Message Code: {e.MessageCode}; X: {e.X}; Y: {e.Y}; Delta: {e.Delta}");
}
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