Solved: simulate key press combinations .....Alt+3

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tonyedmo

simulate key press combinations .....Alt+3

Ok im working on the program that send key commans to another application.
It seems this application doesn't see Alt or Control combinations using
.nets SendKeys.Send
or windows APIs:SendMessage, SendInput, keybd_event, or SetKeyboardState

most of these methods work fine when sending a "normal" key
but when a combination is send the application reacts as if the Alt key was not sent

I have been looking all over the place and it seems it might be because the application the receive the key events uses directx

Any one have any experience with this type of issue.........fyi im working in C#

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Dirk Haest🇧🇪

To specify keys combined with any combination of the SHIFT, CTRL, and ALT keys, precede the key code with one or more of the following codes.

Key Code
SHIFT +
CTRL ^
ALT %

To specify that any combination of SHIFT, CTRL, and ALT should be held down while several other keys are pressed, enclose the code for those keys in parentheses. For example, to specify to hold down SHIFT while E and C are pressed, use "+(EC)". To specify to hold down SHIFT while E is pressed, followed by C without SHIFT, use "+EC".

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.sendkeys(vs.71).aspx

SendKeys.Send "C" --> will send C
SendKeys.Send "^C" --> will send ctrl+C

tonyedmo

ASKER

as I said I have tried using sendkeys.send

Dirk Haest🇧🇪

Are you sure that the program that needs to retrieve the keys has the focus ?

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Dirk Haest🇧🇪

In the program I've done, I did this
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

hWnd = Win32.FindWindow(strClassName, strAppTitle);
if (hWnd != 0)
{
bWindow = Win32.SetForegroundWindow(hWnd);
System.Windows.Forms.SendKeys.SendWait("{TAB}");
}

Dirk Haest🇧🇪

Forgot, I also needed this class:
      public class Win32

      {
            [DllImport("user32.dll")]
            public static extern int FindWindow(
                  string lpClassName, // class name
                  string lpWindowName // window name
                  );

            [DllImport("user32.dll")]
            public static extern bool SetForegroundWindow(int hWnd);

      }

tonyedmo

ASKER

yeah im positive it has focus
works with normal key sends, its just when you try and send something like Alt+3 or Sendkeys.send("%(3)")
the direct x application only sees the 3
I spent got portion of time trying to get sendkeys to work as I thought perhaps i was useing wrong
Then I moved on to the APIs listed above.

Another posibly interesting note is spy++ does not see any keyboard messages go to the app

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Dirk Haest🇧🇪

Can you try it with {} instead of ()

So something like this: "%{3}"

tonyedmo

ASKER

tried that too :)

tonyedmo

ASKER

figured it out
used sendinput api and put a delay in between the down and up messages

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Dirk Haest🇧🇪

Glad you figured it out.
By the way: did you try SendKeys.SendWait or only SendKeys.Send ?
(In the program I've written with the sendkeys I also used small delays between every sendkeys)

tonyedmo

ASKER

ended up having to do somthing like the following
sendinput alt keydown
sendinput 3 keydown
sleep 50
sendinput 3 keyup
sendinput alt keyup

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Dirk Haest🇧🇪

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