Raise systemwide keypress event

Question

Is there a way to raise system-wide "keypress" events programmatically from within Mathematica?

Say "Ctrl+C" or "Ctrl+V", which all other programs can recognize?

This is an attempt to gain simple control/automation of other programs from within the Mathematica environment

I'm pretty sure that this cannot be done within Mathematica, as it is not a system-wide interface. But you can use the extremely easy-to-learn AutoHotkey which allows you to do exactly this. — István Zachar, Sep 25 '13 at 06:55
Thanks for the solution. I was using Autoit and it is a Windows-specific solution. Doing it using Mathematica would be cross-platform I thought — my account_ram, Sep 25 '13 at 07:30

score 7 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 25 '13 at 13:02

One possibility is to use JLink

Needs["JLink`"]; 
ReinstallJava[]; 
LoadJavaClass["java.awt.event.KeyEvent"]; 
robotclass = JavaNew["java.awt.Robot"]; 
key = (Function[k,robotclass[keyPress[Symbol["KeyEvent`VKU"<>k]]]] /@ {##};
       Function[k,robotclass[keyRelease[Symbol["KeyEvent`VKU"<>k]]]] /@ {##}
       )&;
(* e.g., select all Input cells in this notebook :*)
NotebookFind[InputNotebook[], "Input", All, CellStyle]; 
(* and press and reslase Ctrl C programmatically *)
key["CONTROL", "C"]; 

(* create a new document *)
CreateDocument[TextCell["Robot says hi ", "Text"]];
(* use the robotclass to hit the down arrow key, thus moving below the cell *)
key["DOWN"];key["DOWN"];
(* and now ececut Ctrl V by robot: *)
key["CONTROL", "V"];

Raise systemwide keypress event

1 Answers1

Linked