In Mac OS / Cocoa, may I synthesize keyboard entries - strings - for the frontmost application in a transparent way?
To be more precise, I don't want to send special characters or control sequences. My only need is to send standard characters.
Just learned here, that AppleScript can do the trick like this:
tell application "TextEdit"
activate
tell application "System Events"
keystroke "f" using {command down}
end tell
end tell
Q: How would I do this using ObjC / cocoa?
UPDATE 2012-02-18 - Nicks proposal enhanced
Based on Nick's code below, here is the final solution:
// First, get the PSN of the currently front app
ProcessSerialNumber psn;
GetFrontProcess( &psn );
// make some key events
CGEventRef keyup, keydown;
keydown = CGEventCreateKeyboardEvent (NULL, (CGKeyCode)6, true);
keyup = CGEventCreateKeyboardEvent (NULL, (CGKeyCode)6, false);
// forward them to the frontmost app
CGEventPostToPSN (&psn, keydown);
CGEventPostToPSN (&psn, keyup);
// and finally behave friendly
CFRelease(keydown);
CFRelease(keyup);
Using this method, a click on a button of a non-activating panel targets the event to the actual front application. Perfectly what I want to do.
Sure, you'll want to use CGEventCreateKeyboardEvent to create keyboard events, then post them as such:
CGEventRef keyup, keydown;
keydown = CGEventCreateKeyboardEvent (NULL, (CGKeyCode)56, true);
keyup = CGEventCreateKeyboardEvent (NULL, (CGKeyCode)56, false);
CGEventPost(kCGHIDEventTap, keydown);
CGEventPost(kCGHIDEventTap, keyup);
CFRelease(keydown);
CFRelease(keyup);
It's a bit more complicated than AppleScript but it does the trick. You do have to explicitly post a keydown and then a keyup event. More information at the Quartz Event Services Reference.
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