I'm trying to learn the basics of the windows API by making a program that, when the PRINTSCREEN button is pressed, will save a .jpeg and instantly upload it to imgur. Currently, while I'm playing most games or just browsing the desktop, this program works fine.
Some games, however, seem to block my ability to use this hotkey. (Dark Souls 2 specifically does this.) I currently use
RegisterHotKey(NULL, 1, 0, VK_SNAPSHOT)
to assign the button to my program. However, when some games are running, neither the above RegisterHotKey nor the below GetAsyncKeyState work when the key is pressed.
GetAsyncKeyState(VK_SNAPSHOT)
(I don't want to use GetAsyncKeyState due to the fact that it will keep bugging the windows API and make the program unnecessarily slow, it was just for test.)
Does anyone know of a way to stop this from happening?
(and, on an unrelated note: If it is a simple task, how would I take a screenshot spanning multiple monitor(s)? Mine currently works on only my primary monitor...)
If the application is using raw input for its keyboard mapping, then the keyboard processing code bypasses the hotkey checker. I personally have no idea if Dark Souls does this or not, but I am familiar with the Windows kernel code that does keyboard processing.
Related
A couple years ago, I had to implement touch features in an application, but my company was still using Scientific Linux 6.4, which did not natively support touch, not to mention multi-touch. Fortunately, I was able to upgrade the kernel to 2.6.32-754, which gave me access to multi-touch events, and while they were not natively handled, I was able to write my own "driver" in the application that would read the /dev/input/event file and use the input_event class in the kernel to capture touch events and translate them to application behavior.
Now, two years later, we're finally moving on to RedHat 8, and obviously there's now native touch support. Pretty much all my code is still required as it's highly specific to this application, and I don't see much point in re-writing anything. However, because touch events are now natively recognized, I'm seeing some issues where touch press events will be registered twice -- once from the OS, and once from my driver. The touch press events from my driver are required because they're being tracked and handled by my driver.
Is there a way I can update my driver to ignore the OS native touch events that are interfering with my driver without affecting my driver's operation? This is especially prevalent with the on-screen keyboard which is causing it to type the same character twice when the button is pressed.
The simple answer to this problem seemed to be to use xinput to disable the touchscreen device input, which gave me the behavior I wanted. The reason I don't want to re-write the code handling it is because it would be a lot of effort and time for no difference in behavior or performance. I can't just use the native touch because the UI doesn't just use single touch actions, it uses custom gestures that are interpreted by my driver.
This question was originally about how to trap mouse events, which i solved after a lot of research using SetWindowsHookEx with C++.
Problem is, its working for me on Windows, it works in applications, but it doesnt work in games.
can somebody help me understand why the mouse hook doesnt work in some games? could it be possible all the games i tried use Raw Input? :S
(i tried Ibb&Obb, Fallout 4, Metro Last Light and some other titles)
Basically im asking: how is it possible to use a Mouse Hook to trap it globally in all the applications running?
thanks for the helpers.
EDIT : I found out that most games i play use DirectInput. guess the better question is: How can i intercept mouse messages in DirectInput and prevent them from being registered by the game? i want to be able to drag the mouse and it would have no effect on the game.
after a lot of research i found out that, from what i understood, API Hooking (Microsoft Detours, API Hijack and more) is the only way to do it.
Important note: it doesnt help me much since API Hooking for games require DLL injection which will get you banned from Steam and other platforms.
I have coded up a low level keyboard hook using SetWindowsHookEX() on Windows CE 4.2 and it seems to work just fine. I am able to see key events using the keyboard and a barcode scanner in notepad and other applications as desired, but I do not see the barcode scanner events in the one application that I want to collect the keys in. I still see events from the keyboard, however, so I know that the keyboard hook is still working and in the hook chain. I have even tried inserting my hook in the chain every millisecond just to see if it would make a difference, but no dice. If I flip back to notepad, it's back to working the way I want it.
I'm not sure what the other application is doing to gain control of the scanner when that application is active that prevents it from acting like a keyboard any more. Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated. I've done a bunch of searches without any success. I looked into trying to use RAWINPUT, but it doesn't seem to be supported in Windows CE 4.2 from what I can tell as I don't see the user32.dll in the SDK.
There are two ways to get barcode data on most WEC devices.
The keyboard wedge (where data comes in as as keyboard events)
An OEM specific barcode reader API
If this other app your looking at uses option #2 then there is no keyboard data to retrieve, so it makes sense you wouldn't see any. That said, you might read this article to see if it offers any tips for your keyboard hook.
Functions exported by user32.dll in big Windows are generally found in coredll.dll in WEC/WEH.
-PaulH
I bought a physical button and hooked it up to my computer, using the Arduino it communicates over USB serial to a C++ program I'm writing. Now I want to make the button simulate a keypress on my computer so I could use it as an alternative controller for the games I play.
If you are not familiar with Arduino, don't mind it, my problem lies completely in C++
The solution for this is pretty simple, it basically boils down to using SendMessage to a window with keystrokes, or many alternative methods like sendKeys and what not.
I have tried every single library or windows function that could handle something like this, but none of them actually simulates a keystroke being pressed by a keyboard.
Everything I tried so far has worked in many programs like Notepad and Chrome but none works with a game that doesn't listen to windows messages to handle key input.
My guess is that these games use GetAsyncKeyState which is communicating with the physical keyboard in a direct manner.
How could I resolve this? What API provides such functionality?
I need something very low level here, maybe even a program that emulates a new keyboard so windows thinks I have plugged in a physical one.
This would help me ALOT I've encountered this problem numerous times and I will keep encountering it in the near future with other projects.
I hope someone can help,
Thanks!
Use keybd_event() or SendInput()
How can I completely disable the keyboard using c++ in windows? And by completely disable I mean so even Ctrl+Alt+Delete doesn't work. I did consider using a keyboard driver but I think you need to restart the computer after it is installed, but since I only need to disable it for a couple minutes that wouldn't really work.
This is not really possible.
WinLogon is designed as the one process that intercepts the Ctrl+Alt+Del key press, even when all other things hang or die.
This is the failsafe against malicious sessions, etc. So there is no obvious workaround.
Maybe a keyboard filter driver would make your request possible, but that is a real kernel-driver.
You can't disable Ctrl-Alt-Delete without removing the keyboard or replacing the keyboard driver, it generates a kernel level notification.
You could use BlockInput function. But it doesn't block CTRL + ALT + DEL.
You could install a keyboard hook and filter out the messages, but you might need to have your application as the top most window. Even then Ctrl+Alt+Del would not get filtered out.
Here's SetWindowsHookEx on MSDN
Example of Hooking the Keyboard
Ok, here goes several random suggestions. I don't have a definitite answer, but here's where I would start:
1) SetupDiRemoveDevice is probably the API you want to call. Although to call it, you'll need to make a lot of other device enumeration calls. Enumerate your HID and USB devices and find the keyboard. Start by looking for the VID/PID of the actual device for starters.
2) Delete the drivers kdbclass.sys and kbdhid.sys. You'll be fighting Windows system file to do this. I have no idea if this will work, but sounds interesting and simple.
3) Write a USB filter driver. Your driver will need to know (or be passed) the vid/pid of the device to filter on, but it might work.