AutoHotkey Community

[shimanov]

The Windows API function, SendInput, permits sending Unicode characters (or a stream of characters) to the active window. The following code includes the function, SendInputU, which encapsulates and simplifies the use of SendInput, as well as, a demonstration (i.e., F1 hotkey). SendInput in Unicode mode is supported by Windows 2000 and XP. The SendInputU function has been tested with Notepad and Word 2003 on Windows XP.

pro: events are inserted serially (i.e., without interruption) into the target window's queue
con: events are context sensitive (i.e, they are affected by other input events)

note: respond if you understand the encoded message

[Laszlo]

Fantastic! Thank you for figuring this out!

A few questions:
- If I replace the HotKey with: ^F1, !F1, !z or ^z the Russian Hello World! (Привет Мир!) message is not received by Ms Word. Others, like: F1, +F1, ^!F1, ^!z, #z work perfectly. What are the restrictions? How can I reset the context, so any HotKey works? (Sending Alt-Down/Up does not work.)
- What do I have to modify for sending ANSI coded strings, like äößü, each character encoded with a single byte? (AHK sends them as ALT-Numpad number combinations, which are interruptible, and ugly side effects can result. Not Unicode aware applications cannot handle the SendInputU Unicode stream.)
- The magic string contains 16-bit Unicodes "041F 0440 0438 0432 0435 0442 0020 041C 0438 0440 0021", which I can find with the Windows Character Map (or by Insert Symbol in Word). Are there any restrictions?

[shimanov]

[Chris]

(I should have posted this earlier)
Nice work. Something like this should probably be integrated into the Send command soon, since it seems of high value to many users. Thanks for your R&D.

[Laszlo]

ANSI code: Yes, it works in not Unicode aware applications I tried so far. The only difference I found is that sending "0008" in MS Word and Notepad works as BackSpace (deleting characters to left), but in MultiEdit it produces an unknown character placeholder, in NotePad2: the bold, inverted letters "BS". It probably has nothing to do with ANSI- or Unicode, just how an application handles non-printable characters. I just hoped a simulated Unicode hotstring could contain the right number of BackSpace characters encoded in the replacement string, but this does not seem to work universally.

In the mean time, I tried SendInputU in my keyboard remapping scripts. It works as expected, but a little too slow, due to the 20 DllCalls for each character plus one DllCall for send. I made the following modifications for a 5-fold speedup (in the cost of readability)

[shimanov]

to Chris:

Thanks. SendInputU implements a subset of the functionality available through the the SendInput function. However, I thought the integrated Unicode support would have the highest value.

to Laszlo:

[Laszlo]

[shimanov]

[Laszlo]

[shimanov]

[Laszlo]

If I understand right:

- SendInput needs 2 consecutive blocks of data for each character it processes, 28 bytes each.
- Each block starts with 01 00 00 00
- If, in the first block, the next 2 bytes are 00 00, the 2 bytes after them are taken as Unicode. In this case, the second block has to have the same data up to here.
- If, in the first block, bytes 4 and 5 are not zero, they are taken as scan code. The following 4 bytes and all these 6 locations in the second block do not matter.
- The first block contains 04 in the byte position 8 (meaning key down).
- The second block contains 06 in the byte position 8 (meaning key up).
- All other bytes are 0.

Please correct where I am wrong.

[shimanov]

[Lester Wong]

So why doesn't it work in Skype?

[TAB4217]

[code]
^F1::
KeyWait, Ctrl
SendInputU( ... )
return

***Why is KeyWait, Ctrl necessary? (An explanation would help me to understand the workings of AHK.)
Thank you.
TAB

[Laszlo]

The SendInputU function does not change the state of the modifier keys. If you use it in a hotkey subroutine, like Ctrl-F1, the sent keys will all behave as Ctrl-key combinations, while the user holds the Ctrl key down. You have to do something to fake a release of the Ctrl key, or wait until it is released by the user (KeyWait Ctrl).