wanton yew
When I was working on a project I needed to be able to hold a key down, and chose SendInput since it apperantly works for DirectX games.
I've already tried: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/64084452/how-to-simulate-holding-down-a-key-in-c, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4VFo4acorQ, and a whole lotta chatgpting.
I wrote this in Rust originally.
let mut keybd_flags = KEYEVENTF_SCANCODE;
let mut inserted_events = 0;
let mut expected_events = 1;
let mut input: INPUT = std::mem::zeroed();
let mut kbd_input: KEYBDINPUT = std::mem::zeroed();
kbd_input.wScan = scan_code as u16;
kbd_input.dwFlags = keybd_flags;
input.type_ = INPUT_KEYBOARD;
*input.u.ki_mut() = kbd_input;
let new_events = SendInput(1, std::ptr::addr_of_mut!(input), INPUT_SIZE);
inserted_events += new_events;
if inserted_events != expected_events {
return Err(Error::InputError(inserted_events as i32));
}
std::thread::sleep(std::time::Duration::from_millis(1));
This would only press a key a single time not actually holding it down, (as tested in vscode and notepad). As shown below:
unsafe { key_down("a").unwrap() }
sleep(3.0);
unsafe { key_up("a").unwrap() }
So I assumed there was a problem with my code, I decided to look for something online in C++ that accomplishes the same task and test with that.
Which is when I came across this:
WCHAR key = 'a';
key = VkKeyScanW(key);
UINT mappedKey = MapVirtualKeyW(LOBYTE(key), NULL);
INPUT input = { 0 };
input.type = INPUT_KEYBOARD;
input.ki.dwFlags = KEYEVENTF_SCANCODE;
input.ki.wScan = mappedKey;
SendInput(1, &input, sizeof(input));
Sleep(2000);
input.ki.dwFlags = KEYEVENTF_SCANCODE | KEYEVENTF_KEYUP;
SendInput(1, &input, sizeof(input));
But I face the same difficulty here, where a is only pressed a single time.
For context, I'm attempting to copy the functionality from pydirectinput into rust, which follows that functionality. Yet keyDown on pydirectinput works as intended.
So I'm a little lost, also go easy on me I'm extremely new to using the WinAPI and for the most part have been scavenging code and whatever I can learn off Google.
(pasted from stack overflow)
gilded sage