I am trying to make an application that sends keys to an external application, in this case aerofly FS. I have previously used the SendKeys.SendWait() method with succes, but this time, it doesn't quite work the way I want it to. I want to send a "G" keystroke to the application and testing it out with Notepad I do get G's. But in aerofly FS nothing is recieved at all. Pressing G on the keyboard does work though.
This is my code handling input data (from an Arduino) an sending the keystrokes,
private void handleData(string curData)
{
if (curData == "1")
SendKeys.SendWait("G");
else
{ }
}
I too have run into external applications where SendKeys didn't work for me.
As best I can tell, some applications, like applets inside a browser, expect to receive the key down, followed by a pause, followed by a key up, which I don't think can be done with SendKeys.
I have been using a C# wrapper to the AutoIt Library, and have found it quite easy to use.
Here's a link to quick guide I wrote for integrating AutoIt into a C# project.
Once you have the wrapper and references, you can send "G" with the following:
private void pressG()
{
AutoItX3Declarations.AU3_Send("{g}");
}
or with a pause,
private void pressG()
{
AutoItX3Declarations.AU3_Send("{g down}", 0);
AutoItX3Declarations.AU3_Sleep( 50 ); //wait 50 milliseconds
AutoItX3Declarations.AU3_Send("{g up}", 0);
}
AutoIt also allows you programmatically control the mouse.
Related
I have a LaunchPad MK3 Mini MIDI device that I'm looking to tie into a C# app I'm making, where pressing buttons will invoke a various functions within the app. After a bit of research, I landed on using the RtMidi.Core library (thru NuGet). And upon debugging, it appears that I'm able to fully listen to the device and react to events appropriately, and that's good.
I should also back up a bit as well. I'm quite inexperienced to using MIDI devices so a lot of the terminology and industry usage is a bit lost on me. But it's my understanding that a MIDI device can be modified so that the individual keys can be changed to perform a different MIDI event. In my case, I'm not using this for any musical purpose, so there is no need for Note/Piano type events. So I changed all the buttons to be Control Change, all of them with unique Channel/ControlNum combinations. It appears these CC buttons can be one of 3 "Pad Modes":
Momentary - Both KeyDown and KeyUp each will trigger a separate MIDI event
Toggle - Only KeyDown will trigger a MIDI event and each one will alternate between 0 and some specified non-zero value
Trigger - Only KeyDown will trigger a MIDI event, but it will always be the specified non-zero value
Now, as it pertains to my use cases. I'm looking to utilize the 'Trigger' Pad Mode type, as this will trigger some various code which will last a variable duration. My issue is, the MIDI device will change the LED keylight color to its ON color and it NEVER goes back to its initial state (as expected, tbh). So what I'm looking to do is after my 'certain function' is done executing, that it would 'reset' this trigger back to the initial state as its last course of action.
So, I create a ControlChangeMessage with the proper channel/control/value and send it to the MIDI device, but the LED color doesn't seem to change back to the original color. The ONLY thing that seems to reset its state is to unplug the USB power from the device and plug it back in.
For reference: The input and output device names I'm using are similar, but different, as indicated in the code below:
foreach (var inputDeviceInfo in MidiDeviceManager.Default.InputDevices)
{
Console.WriteLine($"Opening {inputDeviceInfo.Name}");
if (inputDeviceInfo.Name == "MIDIIN2 (LPMiniMK3 MIDI) ")
{
var inputDevice = inputDeviceInfo.CreateDevice();
devices.Add(inputDevice);
inputDevice.ControlChange += ControlChangeHandler;
inputDevice.Open();
}
}
foreach (var outputDeviceInfo in MidiDeviceManager.Default.OutputDevices)
{
Console.WriteLine($"Opening {outputDeviceInfo.Name}");
if (outputDeviceInfo.Name == "MIDIOUT2 (LPMiniMK3 MIDI) ")
{
var outputDevice = outputDeviceInfo.CreateDevice();
devicesOut.Add(outputDevice);
outputDevice.Open();
//while (!outputDevice.IsOpen) { }
ControlChangeMessage ccMsg = new ControlChangeMessage(RtMidi.Core.Enums.Channel.Channel3, 0, 0);
outputDevice.Send(ccMsg);
}
}
So from this, I'm really unsure why this wouldn't be working. Perhaps there is another MIDI library I could be using, or perhaps I'm just missing something with respect to how these MIDI devices work.
I am a very newbie programmer. Does anyone of you know how to do Web automation with C#?
Basically, I just want auto implement some simple action on the web.
After I have opened up the web link, i just want to perform the actions below automatically.
Automatically Input some value and Click on "Run" button.
Check In the ComboBox and Click on "Download" button.
How can I do it with C#? My friend introduce me to use Powershell but I guess .Net do provide this kind of library too. Any suggestion or link for me to refer?
You can use the System.Windows.Forms.WebBrowser control (MSDN Documentation). For testing, it allows your to do the things that could be done in a browser. It easily executes JavaScript without any additional effort. If something went wrong, you will be able to visually see the state that the site is in.
example:
private void buttonStart_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
webBrowser1.DocumentCompleted += new WebBrowserDocumentCompletedEventHandler(webBrowser1_DocumentCompleted);
webBrowser1.Navigate("http://www.wikipedia.org/");
}
void webBrowser1_DocumentCompleted(object sender, WebBrowserDocumentCompletedEventArgs e)
{
HtmlElement search = webBrowser1.Document.GetElementById("searchInput");
if(search != null)
{
search.SetAttribute("value", "Superman");
foreach(HtmlElement ele in search.Parent.Children)
{
if (ele.TagName.ToLower() == "input" && ele.Name.ToLower() == "go")
{
ele.InvokeMember("click");
break;
}
}
}
}
To answer your question: how to check a checkbox
for the HTML:
<input type="checkbox" id="testCheck"></input>
the code:
search = webBrowser1.Document.GetElementById("testCheck");
if (search != null)
search.SetAttribute("checked", "true");
actually, the specific "how to" depends greatly on what is the actual HTML.
For handling your multi-threaded problem:
private delegate void StartTestHandler(string url);
private void StartTest(string url)
{
if (InvokeRequired)
Invoke(new StartTestHandler(StartTest), url);
else
{
webBrowser1.DocumentCompleted += new WebBrowserDocumentCompletedEventHandler(webBrowser1_DocumentCompleted);
webBrowser1.Navigate(url);
}
}
InvokeRequired, checks whether the current thread is the UI thread (actually, the thread that the form was created in). If it is not, then it will try to run StartTest in the required thread.
Check out SimpleBrowser, which is a fairly mature, lightweight browser automation library.
https://github.com/axefrog/SimpleBrowser
From the page:
SimpleBrowser is a lightweight, yet
highly capable browser automation
engine designed for automation and
testing scenarios. It provides an
intuitive API that makes it simple to
quickly extract specific elements of a
page using a variety of matching
techniques, and then interact with
those elements with methods such as
Click(), SubmitForm() and many more.
SimpleBrowser does not support
JavaScript, but allows for manual
manipulation of the user agent,
referrer, request headers, form values
and other values before submission or
navigation.
If you want to simulate a real browser then WatiN will be a good fit for you. (Selenium is another alternative, but I do not recommend it for you).
If you want to work on the HTTP level, then use WebRequest and related classes.
You could use Selenium WebDriver.
A quick code sample below:
using OpenQA.Selenium;
using OpenQA.Selenium.Firefox;
// Requires reference to WebDriver.Support.dll
using OpenQA.Selenium.Support.UI;
class GoogleSuggest
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
// Create a new instance of the Firefox driver.
// Note that it is wrapped in a using clause so that the browser is closed
// and the webdriver is disposed (even in the face of exceptions).
// Also note that the remainder of the code relies on the interface,
// not the implementation.
// Further note that other drivers (InternetExplorerDriver,
// ChromeDriver, etc.) will require further configuration
// before this example will work. See the wiki pages for the
// individual drivers at http://code.google.com/p/selenium/wiki
// for further information.
using (IWebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver())
{
//Notice navigation is slightly different than the Java version
//This is because 'get' is a keyword in C#
driver.Navigate().GoToUrl("http://www.google.com/");
// Find the text input element by its name
IWebElement query = driver.FindElement(By.Name("q"));
// Enter something to search for
query.SendKeys("Cheese");
// Now submit the form. WebDriver will find the form for us from the element
query.Submit();
// Google's search is rendered dynamically with JavaScript.
// Wait for the page to load, timeout after 10 seconds
var wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10));
wait.Until(d => d.Title.StartsWith("cheese", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase));
// Should see: "Cheese - Google Search" (for an English locale)
Console.WriteLine("Page title is: " + driver.Title);
}
}
}
The great thing (among others) about this approach is that you can easily switch the underlying browser implementations, just by specifying a different IWebDriver, like FirefoxDriver, InternetExplorerDriver, ChromeDriver, etc. This also means you can write 1 test and run it on multiple IWebDriver implementations, thus testing how the page works when viewed in Firefox, Chrome, IE, etc. People working in QA sector often use Selenium to write automated web page tests.
I'm using ObjectForScripting to automate WebBrowser, A Javascript callback to C# function and then function in c# extract data or automate many-thing.
I have clearly explained in the following link
Web Automation using Web Browser and C#
.NET does not have any built-in functionality for this. It does have the WebClient and HttpRequest/HttpResponse classes, but they are only building blocks.
You cannot easily automate client-side activity, like filling out forms or clicking on buttons from C#. However, if you look into JavaScript, you may be able to better automate some of those things. To really automate, you would need to reverse engineer the call made by clicking the button, and connect to the url directly, using the classes #John mentions.
I'd like for a single console application to spawn other console windows and output to different ones at different times inside of a C# console application. Preferably within one console application, I spawn some other consoles, write to them, and close them during the finally block of the original console application.
What's the ideal way to do this in C#?
I don't believe you can do this with a regular console application. The closest you could come would be to create a your own form in WinForms/WPF which behaved in roughly the same was as a normal console window.
I suppose you could spawn extra processes which each had their own console, and write to them via network connections or named pipes etc... it would be pretty ugly though.
You can do this with Auto/Manual EventWaitHandles in C# combined with countless other techniques. However, you should probably step back and see what you are trying to accomplish and see if a winform app would be a better fit. Maybe post more details and ask for ideas.
A single process can only ever have one true Standard In, Error and Out.
You can fake different ones, especially in .Net because after all they are presented as managed streams which would be fine at the push/pull and of the pipe. The problem is the output/input end i.e. the bit you might be piping to a file, or where you are requesting user input. These simply won't play ball since the OS supplies no multiplexing method itself.
Using simple means at best you could do something that sent output to multiple different windows which looked much like a console window.
With much complexity you would handle reading from them too. In essence you are writing a window which pretends to be a console, and getting it reasonably close to all the little intricacies of console windows is (increasingly) hard.
It would be simple to have (say) a fake console per thread by creating a class like so. I only bother with Out, In and Err follow easily from this.
public class MultiplexByThreadConsole : IDisposable
{
private readonly TextWriter originalOut;
private readonly TextWriter myOut = new IndividualMultiplex();
public MultiplexByThreadConsole()
{
this.originalOut = Console.Out;
Console.SetOut(this.myOut);
}
public void Dispose()
{
Console.SetOut(this.originalOut);
}
private class IndividualMultiplex : TextWriter
{
[ThreadStatic]
private readonly TextWriter actual;
// override all the required functions and any
// others you want to wrap
public override void Write(char c)
{
if (actual == null)
{
actual = MakeWhateverYouReallyWantToOutputTo();
}
actual.Write(c);
}
}
}
Then somewhere in Main (or wherever) do:
using(new MultiplexByThreadConsole())
{
// off you go all threads during this get their own faked console.
}
You would likely keep the In/Out/Err all pointing to some common objects writers/reader which was itself the fake console.
This is however pretty nasty. I would say that, if you truly want to launch things that look like separate consoles then you should actually do that and launch a new process for each one with a glue back end to manage them (somewhat similar to the concept of Chrome's back end processes per tab).
I am writing a C# console application that connects to a server trough TCP, it uses a separate thread to listen for incoming messages from the server and I want it to write them to the console while at the same time reading a message from the console. I was able to do that, but I have a problem.
The console displays this while I type and a messages comes in:
msg from server
msg from server
my msmsg from server
g to server
And i want it to separate my message from the servers mesages like so:
msg from server
msg from server
msg from server
my msg to server
If I receive a message I still want to keep my typed message, but I don't want it to mix up with the received message, I want it to remain complete on the last line.
Can I do that? And how?
Can I shift my message to the end of the console, when a message from the server comes in?
I believe this is in fact possible with the standard .NET Console API, using a bit of hackery. What you need to do is create an asynchronous Read/ReadLine method (which I assume you have already done, judging by your post) and allow it to be cancelled as soon as new data arrives. I'm going to assume you're sending input line by line for now. The pseudocode for the "new data handler" might be something like this:
Save the current input buffer.
Cancel the current asynchronous read.
Reset the cursor position to the end of the last writing of new data.
Output the new data.
Save the cursor position.
Restart the asynchronous read event.
In particular, you'll need to mess around with Console.CursorLeft and Console.CursorTop properties. You might be able to avoid some of the hackery by interfacing with the Win32 API console functions directly, but it's possibly not worth the bother.
Hope that helps.
You can't do this directly via the BCL in C#. There are two main alternatives, though.
1) Turn this into a GUI app, and have separate input/output areas. This is the most "clear" option from a user's POV, but requires a GUI app instead of a console app.
2) P/Invoke into the console API directly. This gives you complete control of the console's view, point by point. See SetConsoleCursorPosition and WriteConsole, etc.
You need to use a lock on some object to stop both threads using the console at the same time. Declare something like this:
public static class ThreadSafeConsole
{
private static object _lockObject = new object();
public static void WriteLine(string str)
{
lock (_lockObject)
{
Console.WriteLine(str);
}
}
}
Now call ThreadSafeConsole.WriteLine instead of Console.WriteLine.
If I understand you correctly, you'd have to define what the beginning and ending of 'typing to console' is for your application so that you can still lock on an object while that is happening, and not inserting messages from your listener thread into your typed text.
public static Object consoleLock = new Object();
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
lock (consoleLock)
{
// now nothing can write to the console (if it's trying to lock onto it)
Console.WriteLine("Please Input Something");
// read from console
}
// now, your separate thread CAN write to the console - without
// interrupting your input process
}
I have a barcode scanner (which acts like a keyboard) and of course I have a keyboard too hooked up to a computer. The software is accepting input from both the scanner and the keyboard. I need to accept only the scanner's input. The code is written in C#. Is there a way to "disable" input from the keyboard and only accept input from the scanner?
Note:
Keyboard is part of a laptop...so it cannot be unplugged. Also, I tried putting the following code
protected override Boolean ProcessDialogKey(System.Windows.Forms.Keys keyData)
{
return true;
}
But then along with ignoring the keystrokes from the keyboard, the barcode scanner input is also ignored.
I cannot have the scanner send sentinal characters as, the scanner is being used by other applications and adding a sentinal character stream would mean modifying other code.
Also, I cannot use the timing method of determining if the input came from a barcode scanner (if its a bunch of characters followed by a pause) since the barcodes scanned could potentially be single character barcodes.
Yes, I am reading data from a stream.
I am trying to follow along with the article: Distinguishing Barcode Scanners from the Keyboard in WinForms. However I have the following questions:
I get an error NativeMethods is inaccessible due to its protection level. It seems as though I need to import a dll; is this correct? If so, how do I do it?
Which protected override void WndProc(ref Message m) definition should I use, there are two implementations in the article?
Am getting an error related to [SecurityPermission( SecurityAction.LinkDemand, Flags = SecurityPermissionFlag.UnmanagedCode)] error CS0246: The type or namespace name 'SecurityPermission' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?). How do I resolve this error?
There is also an error on the line containing: if ((from hardwareId in hardwareIds where deviceName.Contains(hardwareId) select hardwareId).Count() > 0) Error is error CS1026: ) expected.
Should I be placing all the code in the article in one .cs file called BarcodeScannerListener.cs?
Followup questions about C# solution source code posted by Nicholas Piasecki on http://nicholas.piasecki.name/blog/2009/02/distinguishing-barcode-scanners-from-the-keyboard-in-winforms/:
I was not able to open the solution in VS 2005, so I downloaded Visual C# 2008 Express Edition, and the code ran. However, after hooking up my barcode scanner and scanning a barcode, the program did not recognize the scan. I put a break point in OnBarcodeScanned method but it never got hit. I did change the App.config with the id of my Barcode scanner obtained using Device Manager. There seems to be 2 deviceNames with HID#Vid_0536&Pid_01c1 (which is obtained from Device Manager when the scanner is hooked up). I don't know if this is causing the scanning not to work. When iterating over the deviceNames, here is the list of devices I found (using the debugger):
"\??\HID#Vid_0536&Pid_01c1&MI_01#9&25ca5370&0&0000#{4d1e55b2-f16f-11cf-88cb-001111000030}"
"\??\HID#Vid_0536&Pid_01c1&MI_00#9&38e10b9&0&0000#{884b96c3-56ef-11d1-bc8c-00a0c91405dd}"
"\??\HID#Vid_413c&Pid_2101&MI_00#8&1966e83d&0&0000#{884b96c3-56ef-11d1-bc8c-00a0c91405dd}"
"\??\HID#Vid_413c&Pid_3012#7&960fae0&0&0000#{378de44c-56ef-11d1-bc8c-00a0c91405dd}"
"\??\Root#RDP_KBD#0000#{884b96c3-56ef-11d1-bc8c-00a0c91405dd}"
"\??\ACPI#PNP0303#4&2f94427b&0#{884b96c3-56ef-11d1-bc8c-00a0c91405dd}"
"\??\Root#RDP_MOU#0000#{378de44c-56ef-11d1-bc8c-00a0c91405dd}"
"\??\ACPI#PNP0F13#4&2f94427b&0#{378de44c-56ef-11d1-bc8c-00a0c91405dd}"
So there are 2 entries for HID#Vid_0536&Pid_01c1; could that be causing the scanning not to work?
OK so it seems that I had to figure out a way to not depend on the ASCII 0x04 character being sent by the scanner...since my scanner does not send that character. After that, the barcode scanned event is fired and the popup with the barcode is shown. So thanks Nicholas for your help.
You could use the Raw Input API to distinguish between the keyboard and the scanner like I did recently. It doesn't matter how many keyboard or keyboard-like devices you have hooked up; you will see a WM_INPUT before the keystroke is mapped to a device-independent virtual key that you typically see in a KeyDown event.
Far easier is to do what others have recommended and configure the scanner to send sentinel characters before and after the barcode. (You usually do this by scanning special barcodes in the back of the scanner's user manual.) Then, your main form's KeyPreview event can watch those roll end and swallow the key events for any child control if it's in the middle of a barcode read. Or, if you wanted to be fancier, you could use a low-level keyboard hook with SetWindowsHookEx() to watch for those sentinels and swallow them there (advantage of this is you could still get the event even if your app didn't have focus).
I couldn't change the sentinel values on our barcode scanners among other things so I had to go the complicated route. Was definitely painful. Keep it simple if you can!
--
Your update, seven years later: If your use case is reading from a USB barcode scanner, Windows 10 has a nice, friendly API for this built-in in Windows.Devices.PointOfService.BarcodeScanner. It's a UWP/WinRT API, but you can use it from a regular desktop app as well; that's what I'm doing now. Here's some example code for it, straight from my app, to give you the gist:
{
using System;
using System.Linq;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.Windows;
using Windows.Devices.Enumeration;
using Windows.Devices.PointOfService;
using Windows.Storage.Streams;
using PosBarcodeScanner = Windows.Devices.PointOfService.BarcodeScanner;
public class BarcodeScanner : IBarcodeScanner, IDisposable
{
private ClaimedBarcodeScanner scanner;
public event EventHandler<BarcodeScannedEventArgs> BarcodeScanned;
~BarcodeScanner()
{
this.Dispose(false);
}
public bool Exists
{
get
{
return this.scanner != null;
}
}
public void Dispose()
{
this.Dispose(true);
GC.SuppressFinalize(this);
}
public async Task StartAsync()
{
if (this.scanner == null)
{
var collection = await DeviceInformation.FindAllAsync(PosBarcodeScanner.GetDeviceSelector());
if (collection != null && collection.Count > 0)
{
var identity = collection.First().Id;
var device = await PosBarcodeScanner.FromIdAsync(identity);
if (device != null)
{
this.scanner = await device.ClaimScannerAsync();
if (this.scanner != null)
{
this.scanner.IsDecodeDataEnabled = true;
this.scanner.ReleaseDeviceRequested += WhenScannerReleaseDeviceRequested;
this.scanner.DataReceived += WhenScannerDataReceived;
await this.scanner.EnableAsync();
}
}
}
}
}
private void WhenScannerDataReceived(object sender, BarcodeScannerDataReceivedEventArgs args)
{
var data = args.Report.ScanDataLabel;
using (var reader = DataReader.FromBuffer(data))
{
var text = reader.ReadString(data.Length);
var bsea = new BarcodeScannedEventArgs(text);
this.BarcodeScanned?.Invoke(this, bsea);
}
}
private void WhenScannerReleaseDeviceRequested(object sender, ClaimedBarcodeScanner args)
{
args.RetainDevice();
}
private void Dispose(bool disposing)
{
if (disposing)
{
this.scanner = null;
}
}
}
}
Granted, you'll need a barcode scanner that supports the USB HID POS and isn't just a keyboard wedge. If your scanner is just a keyboard wedge, I recommend picking up something like a used Honeywell 4600G off eBay for like $25. Trust me, your sanity will be worth it.
What I did in a similar situation is distinguish between a scan and a user typing by looking at the speed of the input.
Lots of characters very close together then a pause is a scan. Anything else is keyboard input.
I don't know exactly your requirements, so maybe that won't do for you, but it's the best I've got :)
It depends on the way you are interacting with the device. Anyway it wont be a C# solution, it will be some other library. Are you reading data from a stream? If you are just taking keystrokes, there may be nothing you can do about it.
I know this is an old thread, found it by searching barcode scanning in WIN10.
Just a few notes in case someone needs it.
These scanners from Honeywell have several USB interfaces.
One is a keyboard + Hid Point of sales (composite device).
Also there are CDC-ACM (ComPort emulation) and Hid Point of sales (alone) + more.
By default the scanners expose a serial number, so the host can distinguish between many devices (I had once +20 connected). There is a command to disable the serial number though!
The newer models behave the same in this regard.
If you want to see it live, try my terminal program yat3 (free on my site).
It can open all the interfaces mentioned above and is tailored for such devices.
A word to use keyboard interfaces:
Only use them as a last resort. They are slow, less reliable when it comes to exotic characters. The only good use is if you want to enter data into existing applications. If you code anyway, then reading from ComPort/HidPos-Device is easier.
look at this: http://nate.dynalias.net/dev/keyboardredirector.rails (NOT AVAILABLE ANYMORE) works great!
Specify the keyboard and the keys you want to block, and it works like a charm!
Also take a look at this: http://www.oblita.com/interception.html
You can create a C# wrapper for it - it also works like a charm..
I think you might be able to distinguish multiple keyboards through DirectX API, or if that doesn't work, through raw input API.
I have successfully accomplished what you folks are looking for here. I have an application that receives all barcode character data from a Honeywell/Metrologic barcode scanner. No other application on the system receives the data from the scanner, and the keyboard continues to function normally.
My application uses a combination of raw input and the dreaded low-level keyboard hook system. Contrary to what is written here, I found that the wm_input message is received before the keyboard hook function is called. My code to process the wm_input message basically sets a boolean variable to specify whether or not the received character is from the scanner. The keyboard hook function, called immediately after the wm_input is processed, swallows the scanner’s pseudo-keyboard data, preventing the data from being received by other applications.
The keyboard hook function has to be placed in an dll since you want to intercept all system keyboard messages. Also, a memory mapped file has to be used for the wm_input processing code to communicate with the dll.