lectricpharaoh

Here is a simple console application I whipped up to demonstrate:I did two things here: first, I used the System.Windows.Forms.Keys enumeration; this is basically the .NET version of the virtual-key constants. You need to cast them to byte first, and (if you're creating a console app, rather than a Windows forms app) add a reference in your project. To add a reference, right-click the project name in the Solution Explorer, say 'add reference', and on the .NET tab, there will be one for System.Windows.Forms. You need to do this before the matching using directive will work. If you're creating a forms app, the reference will already be there, and the using directive will too for any forms-derived classes you create.

The second thing I did was to use the constant 0x7F. This is simply the value of the KEYEVENTF_KEYUP constant. Remember that each 'key down' event needs to be matched with a corresponding 'key up' event, or the system will think a key is still being held down.

Anyways, if you create a new console application, and copy-paste my code above in, it should work fine (after you add the reference, of course). To run it, don't do it from the IDE. Rather, open up a command window (Start -> Run -> type 'cmd' and hit ENTER), navigate to the directory where your program executable is, and run it. You should get output similar to the following:The red text is what you type at the prompt. Hit ENTER, and the prompt will re-appear with the word 'hello' typed in already (green text). This is because the program simulated the keystrokes, and they were still in the buffer.

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A man's knowledge is like an expanding sphere, the surface corresponding to the boundary between the known and the unknown. As the sphere grows, so does its surface; the more a man learns, the more he realizes how much he does not know. Hence, the most ignorant man thinks he knows it all. - L. Sprague de Camp

crawforddavid2006

again, thankyou, that worked perfectly. also thank you for taking the time to explain what was going on.

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lectricpharaoh

Glad to see it's working. However, I have a suggestion for you. Assuming you're creating a class to simulate input (and if you are, you can combine the mouse and keyboard simulation in the same class), you might want to 'wrap' the call to keybd_event() and have your public method use the Keys enumeration directly:Doing it like this has three advantages. First, you don't need to port in the virtual key constants; you can use the ones in the System.Windows.Forms.Keys enumeration. Second, by using an enum, the calling code can only simulate keys for which there is a defined value (no passing in random numeric values). Third, it's clearer because there are two methods that take a single parameter, rather than one method with four (arguably more obscure) parameters. I mean, knowing the names and parameters of those two methods there makes it pretty clear what they do.

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A man's knowledge is like an expanding sphere, the surface corresponding to the boundary between the known and the unknown. As the sphere grows, so does its surface; the more a man learns, the more he realizes how much he does not know. Hence, the most ignorant man thinks he knows it all. - L. Sprague de Camp