Ctrl+Escape is a global Windows shortcut for opening main system menu. But I would like my Qt application to use this shortcut without triggering Windows main menu. I know it is probably a bad idea to override system shortcuts in general, but I would like to use this shortcut is a very limited use case.
This usecase is as follows. I have a popup window containing several rows or items. This window is opened by Ctrl+Tab and while the user holds Ctrl and keep pressing Tab, the current rows are cycled through. When the user releases Ctrl, the current row is used for some operation... But sometimes it happens that user presses Ctrl+Tab and then realizes he does not want to continue. He usually presses Escape while still holding Ctrl. And then it triggers Windows system menu and normal user gets confused, choleric user get angry... which is a bad thing. In other words I would like to be able to close the popup window when user presses Ctrl+Escape. How to do that? It is even possible?
If I write the code using this shortcut like any other short, it does not work and it always triggers Windows main menu.
As I understand it, Qt will typically not receive the key event if the underlying window system has intercepted it. For example even QtCreator cannot override system-wide shortcuts.
This question is almost a duplicate of: C++/Qt Global Hotkeys
While that question is asking specifically to capture shortcuts in a hidden/background application, I think the basic concept is the same -- capture shortcuts before the window system processes them.
From that answer, UGlobalHotkey seems pretty good, and the How to use System-Wide Hotkeys in your Qt application blog post could be useful for your limited-use case (but read the comments on that blog post about fixing the example).
Also found:
https://github.com/mitei/qglobalshortcut
https://github.com/Skycoder42/QHotkey (looks like a more detailed version of above)
Related
I haven't find anything relevant in Google or any Microsoft site about it so I decided to ask a question here.
Everybody knows that in Win-based OS there is a virtual keyboard. I also know that *nix based OS, have it too. So, the question is about:
HOW DOES IT WORK INSIDE?
I mean, let's have an example that I opened on screen keyboard in Windows 10. What's the actual difference between:
input via hardware keyboard: when I'm using it, like I press X button
..and using a virtual keyboard, when I press the same button
Imagine, I have an admin access to terminal/computer, is there any option to track/distinguish that in the second time I pressed button not on hardware keyboard, but on-screen (by mouse clicking) version of it?
And there are also many different software, like AutoIt (yes, it's a language, but it's relevant to this example) that emulating pressing the X button. How does they work in Win-based OS? Do they "in-common" with default on-screen keyboard and using the same driver/WinAPI or there is a difference between them?
And the second case, between:
default on-screen keyboard
compilated AutoIt script
..any other software that emulating press X button
I guess the only way to find out "how exactly button was pressed" is to check current processes list via taskmgr and find out have anything been launched or not. Or I'm totally wrong here, and missing something?
THE SCOPE
I have written a node.js script which emulates button pressing behaviour in windows app.
TL:DR business logic short => open notepad.exe and type `Hello world`
And could someone give me any advice/recommend any powershell/bat script (or any other solution) with demonstration of GetAsyncKeyState check behavior? With which I could easily check my own node.js script (not by functional of it, but by triggering press the X button event)
I found an answer for node.js case here: Detecting Key Presses Across Applications in Powershell
SendInput is the preferred method to generate user input in software. The Windows on-screen keyboard probably uses it for everything except Ctrl+Alt+Delete which I believe has some kind of special handling. The on-screen keyboard is only able to generate Ctrl+Alt+Delete in certain configurations.
Software-generated input is merged with normal hardware input in the RIT (Raw Input Thread) in the kernel.
A low-level keyboard hook can detect software-generated input.
I favor keyboard shortcuts over mouse actions so I'm heavily using keyboard shortcuts with all kinds of applications. Every now and then I'm running into a situation where I assign a keyboard shortcut that has already been used in a different app. Not all apps show warnings when you re-use a combination that has already been used.
Also, since I tend to forget some of the lesser used combinations, it would be nice to find out what has been assigned where.
System Preferences doesn't list all of them, but since my Mac responds to them, there must be some way to get a global list of all assigned keyboard shortcuts.
Does anyone know of a command/script/application that displays them all?
What you want may not be possible. Consider the method by which a application specific system-wide shortcuts may be implemented: event taps. An application can do whatever it wants with an event and never actually register the event with the system. Thus, no application could be written to identify every possible event!
Here is an app that does almost what you want:
http://www.ergonis.com/products/keycue/
It even updates its list when shortcuts are changed.
You can download a list of additional system-wide shortcuts from their site that includes keys not listed anywhere else. But it doesn't show shortcuts for continuously active applications such as Evernote.
Further, you can query and modify hotkeys programmatically:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/24/hotkeys_framework2/
(but it still won't know about event taps)
This list of all system shortcuts from Apple is also useful:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1343
My question is referring to the System Preferences setting that enables you to remap Caps Lock to e.g. Ctrl key.
^ Is it possible to affect this setting programmatically?
Primarily I'd be interested achieving this via defaults or some shell trick; secondarily via AppleScript (yuck).
I know I can probably achieve this by using 3rd party tools, such as KeyRemap4MacBook, but that's a last resort. But I'd rather prefer a non-3rd party solution, if possible.
My use case:
Using Keyboard Maestro and its nice macro triggers, I'm looking to automatically remap Caps Lock -> Ctrl in apps like MacVim, and toggle it back to normal Caps Lock when leaving the affected apps.
You can toggle this using AppleScript. It'll be a simple automation technique, that will basically do the same toggle in System Preferences for you automatically.
You can add the created AppleScript toggle to the MacVim Scripts Toolbar icon. That way, while inside the app you can toggle it, and put it off while leaving.
Is this what you're looking for ? If you still need this I'll design the AppleScript for you and post it in here in a bit.
I've removed the menu from my cocoa app, all of the interaction should happen from within a status item, that links to a menu, that links to different NSPanels. But this seems to have removed the ability to ⌘C or ⌘V within a NSTextField. Is there a way to add this back without having to have a standard menu included with my app?
Even if your app is a faceless background app, so it never shows a menu bar, you should still have a full main menu because that's what provides all of the default actions (and enables the user to redefine the key commands if they so choose). If you remove the main menu, you have to reimplement everything in it, including anything Apple adds in the future, in code.
And I'd especially warn you against trying to handle keyboard shortcuts yourself. That's damned tricky. A lot of applications get it wrong, causing us Dvorak users (among others) to curse their developers.
I assume you can just implement the actions originally connected to the menu items in a keyDown event. Check out this page for details: http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/EventOverview/HandlingKeyEvents/HandlingKeyEvents.html
Just have it respond to cmd-v with paste:, and cmd-C with copy:
Edit: Though I have to agree with Peter, you really should have a main menu...
I'm looking for a way to programmatically detect hotkeys in the system. My app supports configurable hotkeys to do different things, and I'd like to be able to tell if another app has snagged one already or it's a built-in Windows hotkey (like Win-L to lock the workstation).
And if it is another app that owns the hotkey, I'd like to be able to show that to the user. At least the name of the exe.
I'm aware of three ways to do hotkeys:
System hook using standard API's
Using the hotkey feature in the properties dialog for a shortcut
Polling async key state and responding
I doubt I can detect the third type, but what about the other two? And are there any other situations I need to know about?
I can think of three ways to do it with Standard API:
RegisterHotkey
SetWindowsHookEx(WH_KEYBOARD)
SetWindowsHookEx(WH_LL_KEYBOARD)
With the first approach, you will get in the return value whether another application already registered the very same hotkey (or whether a shortcut uses this hotkey, or Explorer.exe registered the hotkey because it is Win+E or win+R). You don't get the application name this way, though.
Using Windows Hooks or async key states for "hotkeys": I don't think it is possible to detect hotkeys there, since you might use hotkeys in a context (like replace "t" by "irst" if the last four keystrokes were "Fris") that way. You could inject the hotkey using keybd_event (with your window focused) and test if the event "gets through"; on the other hands, some cases of "hotkeys" that are implemented via hooks do not consume the keystroke so it will still get through.
The approach I would use: First make sure that for entering a shortcut, you have to type that exact shortcut into your shortcut box (if that fails, the user will see which application uses it). Then use RegisterHotkey, so you will notice (in future sessions) if another "well-behaving" application tried to steal this shortcut from you.