How to enumerate controls for Dropbox

[VeeDub]

Hello,

Final post on this topic as I wanted to summarise my findings for anyone who happens to come across this thread in the future.

First, I'd like to thank again all those who provided assistance in various ways.

It is possible to automate the control of Dropbox using UIA, but UIA only works when the console is unlocked.

I then explored a number of avenues to try and control Dropbox via Control_ID (e.g. ControlClick, MouseMove etc.) I was not able to get this fully working with the Desktop unlocked - let alone locked.

After doing some reading, an idea that I came across for this type of scenario, is that you write a separate application to "lock" the desktop. That application doesn't actually lock the desktop, but seeks to emulate a locked desktop so that you have some level of security while UIA applications to operate normally. I just mention this for interest, on balance it's not what I was seeking.

A couple of people mentioned Syncthing as an alternative. Having looked at the FAQ, I'm not comfortable with how moved folders are handled and I would suggest that anyone contemplating using Syncthing review the FAQ. 

FWIW I've had a look at OneDrive. And the OneDrive client can be controlled from the command-line (at least at the time of writing)

OneDrive can be stopped from the command-line by

OneDrive /shutdown

So if I decide to pursue this further then I may switch to using OneDrive

In any event, I guess the take-away whether you use OneDrive, Syncthing or something else is that you need the ability to control the application from the command-line - and using commands that are built-in to the client.

I can tell you from experience that pausing / killing the Dropbox client (which of course does stop it syncing) but then trying to restart the Dropbox client (to resume syncing) doesn't work reliably. It used to, but it doesn't any more. This is what brought me to this point.

HTH

VW