Problem permiting global shortcut keys

I was programming a program that would hide itself at the press of Ctrl-Space and show itself when Ctrl-Space was pressed. However, the program has to have focus or this won't work. Is there a way to permit such a shortcut press while using another program without clicking on its task bar button


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Problem permiting global shortcut keys

  • Kutlu Araslı

    I got that to work properly, but now it won't even respond to the keypress after registering them. Upon commenting the code off, however, the program will respond again to the keypress. When the program ends, the keypress is unregistered, so I don't think that will be a problem.

    (To avoid any confusion, I am the same person who started this)

  • Jean5

    Yes, you can do this by capturing Windows Messages

    http://www.aaronballman.com/programming/REALbasic/WindowSubclassingArticle.php


  • SunYu - 马爽

    You may use the Windows API RegisterHotKey.

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    msdn:

    RegisterHotKey Function


    The RegisterHotKey function defines a system-wide hot key.

    Syntax

    BOOL RegisterHotKey(      

        HWND hWnd,     int id,     UINT fsModifiers,     UINT vk );

    Parameters

    hWnd
    [in] Handle to the window that will receive WM_HOTKEY messages generated by the hot key. If this parameter is NULL, WM_HOTKEY messages are posted to the message queue of the calling thread and must be processed in the message loop.
    id
    [in] Specifies the identifier of the hot key. No other hot key in the calling thread should have the same identifier. An application must specify a value in the range 0x0000 through 0xBFFF. A shared dynamic-link library (DLL) must specify a value in the range 0xC000 through 0xFFFF (the range returned by the GlobalAddAtom function). To avoid conflicts with hot-key identifiers defined by other shared DLLs, a DLL should use the GlobalAddAtom function to obtain the hot-key identifier.
    fsModifiers
    [in] Specifies keys that must be pressed in combination with the key specified by the uVirtKey parameter in order to generate the WM_HOTKEY message. The fsModifiers parameter can be a combination of the following values.
    MOD_ALT
    Either ALT key must be held down.
    MOD_CONTROL
    Either CTRL key must be held down.
    MOD_SHIFT
    Either SHIFT key must be held down.
    MOD_WIN
    Either WINDOWS key was held down. These keys are labeled with the MicrosoftR WindowsR logo.
    vk
    [in] Specifies the virtual-key code of the hot key.

    Return Value

    If the function succeeds, the return value is nonzero.

    If the function fails, the return value is zero. To get extended error information, call GetLastError.



    Remarks

    When a key is pressed, the system looks for a match against all hot keys. Upon finding a match, the system posts the WM_HOTKEY message to the message queue of the thread that registered the hot key. This message is posted to the beginning of the queue so it is removed by the next iteration of the message loop.

    This function cannot associate a hot key with a window created by another thread.

    RegisterHotKey fails if the keystrokes specified for the hot key have already been registered by another hot key.

    If the window identified by the hWnd parameter already registered a hot key with the same identifier as that specified by the id parameter, the new values for the fsModifiers and vk parameters replace the previously specified values for these parameters.

    Windows NT4 and Windows 2000/XP: The F12 key is reserved for use by the debugger at all times, so it should not be registered as a hot key. Even when you are not debugging an application, F12 is reserved in case a kernel-mode debugger or a just-in-time debugger is resident.

    Function Information

    Header Declared in Winuser.h, include Windows.h
    Import library User32.lib
    Minimum operating systems Windows 95, Windows NT 3.1


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