Spy++ and Sending Alt-Key Messages (HotKeys)

[SpagettiProg]

Hello everyone,

Recently I had a big battle trying to send alt-f to a window (I was trying to automate some work for people at my job). I was using PostMessage and it would work fine with notepad, but not on the window that I needed. I did some digging on google and found people suggesting all sorts of crazy things....

SendMessage, SendInput, keybd_event, PostMessage, SendKeys

All these recommendations and no one providing some good working code.

After doing some testing, I noticed that PostMessage and SendKeys works nicely when trying to send an alt-key message to a window.

Below is both video instruction and working code. Please feel free to post the video on your site or share with anyone. It's free! Enjoy!



http://www.silentthread.com/extras/AltToIE.avi (RIGHT-CLICK, SAVE TARGET AS

Here is the codec to view the file....
http://www.techsmith.com/download/codecs.asp

'Code donated by SpegettiProg, AKA Numbchucks, AKA SiLentThReaD, AKA BLOW-T0RCH
'Feel free to distribute both code and video instruction
 
 
Public Class Form1
    Inherits System.Windows.Forms.Form
 
#Region " Windows Form Designer generated code "
 
    Public Sub New()
        MyBase.New()
 
        'This call is required by the Windows Form Designer.
        InitializeComponent()
 
        'Add any initialization after the InitializeComponent() call
 
    End Sub
 
    'Form overrides dispose to clean up the component list.
    Protected Overloads Overrides Sub Dispose(ByVal disposing As Boolean)
        If disposing Then
            If Not (components Is Nothing) Then
                components.Dispose()
            End If
        End If
        MyBase.Dispose(disposing)
    End Sub
 
    'Required by the Windows Form Designer
    Private components As System.ComponentModel.IContainer
 
    'NOTE: The following procedure is required by the Windows Form Designer
    'It can be modified using the Windows Form Designer.  
    'Do not modify it using the code editor.
    Friend WithEvents Button1 As System.Windows.Forms.Button
    <System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThrough()> Private Sub InitializeComponent()
        Me.Button1 = New System.Windows.Forms.Button
        Me.SuspendLayout()
        '
        'Button1
        '
        Me.Button1.Location = New System.Drawing.Point(32, 24)
        Me.Button1.Name = "Button1"
        Me.Button1.Size = New System.Drawing.Size(248, 80)
        Me.Button1.TabIndex = 0
        Me.Button1.Text = "Alt to IE"
        '
        'Form1
        '
        Me.AutoScaleBaseSize = New System.Drawing.Size(5, 13)
        Me.ClientSize = New System.Drawing.Size(328, 141)
        Me.Controls.Add(Me.Button1)
        Me.Name = "Form1"
        Me.Text = "Form1"
        Me.ResumeLayout(False)
 
    End Sub
 
#End Region
 
    Private Declare Function FindWindow Lib "user32" Alias "FindWindowA" _
    (ByVal lpClassName As String, ByVal lpWindowName As String) As Integer
    Private Declare Function PostMessage Lib "user32" Alias "PostMessageA" _
    (ByVal hwnd As Integer, ByVal wMsg As Integer, ByVal wParam As Int32, _
    ByVal lParam As Int32) As Boolean
    'Above we import 2 functions from user32
 
    Private Const WM_SYSKEYDOWN As Integer = &H104
    Private Const WM_SYSKEYUP As Integer = &H105
    'Above we specify the values of the for our WM_Messages
 
    Dim wParam As Integer
    Dim lParam As Integer
    'Above we declare our wParam and lParam
 
    Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, _
    ByVal e As System.EventArgs) _
    Handles Button1.Click
 
        Dim IE_Handle As Integer 'Declaring our window handle
        IE_Handle = FindWindow("IEFrame", vbNullString)
        'Geting our window handle using the FindWindow function we imported. 
        'IEFrame is the class name of IE. You could have also
        'used the title in place of 
 
        AppActivate("Google")
        'Not recommended to hard code anything, but this is just for testing sake. 
        'We active the IE window that has google open
 
        wParam = &H12
        lParam = &H20380001
        'Above we assign our params the values we got from spy++
 
 
        PostMessage(IE_Handle, WM_SYSKEYDOWN, wParam, lParam)
        PostMessage(IE_Handle, WM_SYSKEYUP, wParam, lParam)
        'Above, we simulate a alt keystroke
        SendKeys.Send("f")
        SendKeys.Send("r")
        'Above, we use SendKeys to active the properties window
 
    End Sub
 
End Class