Send Keystroke on Another Application

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Hello,

i'm a beginner/novice to programming.
i like programming but it seems that programming does not run in my blood :P

I know there's are a lot of articles regarding keystrokes here but i wanted to ask for help for a certain app im working on, a simple win32 EXE file. probably written in C but i dont know how to start?

i want to send a keysroke to say, notepad. first i have two programs open, 1.notepad and 2.the app im working on say a form/API as active with a button "send", once send is clicked it will enable the notepad and send say letter "v" to notepad pause for while maybe 3 secs. then sends "SPACE" then pauses again for 3 secs. then send again "v". lets say its a loop. it will only end when i press "end" on the keyboard or "F12".

the notepad will have the values below,

v v v v v v v v v v v v .... until i end the application.

something like that.

I found an article and a sample code below below by Ali, but i was hopping it could be modified to add the pause, once i click on send keystroke using his sample, the letter will go to notepad which i was looking for, but it sends all added keys at once. i wish you could help me add the 3-5 sec delayed before sending the next keys and loop the added keys until i click done or end the keystroke app.

Sending Keystrokes to another Application in C#[^]

Thanks in advance.

Posted 27-Jan-14 19:37pm

lgmanuel

Updated 27-Jan-14 20:59pm

Jochen Arndt

v3

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Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-27T20:15:00

Solution 1

The only reliable universal way of sending keystrokes to external application is using the low-level Windows API SendInput:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms646310%28v=vs.85%29.aspx[^].

—SA

Posted 27-Jan-14 20:15pm

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov

Updated 28-Jan-14 9:20am

v3

Comments

pasztorpisti 28-Jan-14 15:50pm

+5, your statement holds true but most of the time simply sending keyboard/mouse messages to the target window works even if the target window isn't focused/foregrounded. Some applications switch mode as a result of WM_ACTIVATE/WM_ACTIVATEAPP/WM_FOCUS and in those cases posting messages may not work.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 28-Jan-14 16:02pm

Thank you. And as you know, some application's controls don't even handle those WM_s (WPF). So, only performance of low-level keystroke, starting from the moment things can be activated/focused, can help...
—SA