Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of fattumsdad
fattumsdad

asked on

"Communicating" with Peripherals And Virtual Keys

Is there a way to "interact" with the peripherals in a console program?  For example, switch mouse buttons...  turns caps on / off, etc?  Also, I've heard about using Virtual Keys...  is that used to basically simulate keystrokes?  

Thanks,
Tony
Avatar of itsmeandnobodyelse
itsmeandnobodyelse
Flag of Germany image

Look at the question link below. It  should give some answers to yours as well.

https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/21115369/Redirect-stdin-to-pipe.html

Regards, Alex
Avatar of fattumsdad
fattumsdad

ASKER

Everything I found in those answers were MFC based, I want to use console.  :)
SOLUTION
Avatar of CmdrRickHunter
CmdrRickHunter

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
Its not really such a surprise that they cannot be imitated in C++ (without WindowsAPI).  C++ itself, remember, is just a few keywords like if, and switch.  The origional C/C++ libraries were designed with portability in mind.  They assume an absolute MINIMUM about the system.  The idea of there being other programs wanting to pretend to be the user, and faking out your program is not something of value in the origional set of libraries.

Enter the WindowsAPI, which was designed without portability in mind.  Thus if the feature should be in windows, it will be in the WindowsAPI.

As for the VB commands... all they do is call the WindowsAPI calls for you... nothing C++ with windows features can not do.
Rick,

I see what you're saying...  and I agree totally.  I just wish that using the WindowsAPI were as simple as two VB lines :)
>>> a surprise that they cannot be imitated in C++ (without WindowsAPI)

Rick, i couldn't reproduce the results of these VB comands using the full API. Even the SendKeys function from the link above isn't equal as it doesn't start the program by ShellExecute or CreateProcess  but by entering key inputs to the 'Run' prompt of the Windows Start menu. (the disadvantage of this is that the user may interfere wth own key inputs as you need to have long timeouts between different inputs.) Very probably, i could do it using a COM approach but it was a little bit frustrating that with native WINAPI  and hundreds of statements three is less than with 2 VB script calls,


Regards, Alex