[2005] Activity with other programs on the computer

[noahssite]

Hello, i want to know how the following programs work so i can get an understanding to improve my coding and for future programs.

• A Bot for a game let's say a runescape typing bot or a warcraft 3 clan bot
  A on-screen keyboard
  etc...

I want to know how a on-screen keyboard interacts with other software. When you click the A button on the on-screen keyboard it types in a A to the selected textbox on any program. The on-screen keyboard isnt really selected so everythiing else looses focus.


Something i really want to know:

I want to know how a typing bot for certain games function. How does it match string values with the string values in textboxes of the game (of a different program then its self).

[jmcilhinney]

If you want to send text to a specific window then you need to first get the handle of that window using the FindWindow and FindWindowEx API functions, then send the actual text using the SendMessage API function. There are numerous examples posted on the forum already, so I suggest a search.

As for an on-screen keyboard, that would be different because it should just type into whatever window has focus, just like a regular keyboard. The trick there is to prevent the keyboard window stealing focus when you press a key. See the On-screen Keyboard link in my signature for more information.