Sending Special Keys to the Current Application

Overview

You can use the Global.DoSendKeys action to send keypresses to the current application. Sometimes you will want to send special control keys to the application (e.g. Page Down, or CTRL + Key). This article explains the way to do this.

Important

For Web applications, use Navigator.DoSendKeys and HTMLObject.DoSendKeys which accept the same patterns listed below.

Special Characters

To send special characters, you just use the list available in the Windows API SendKeys.Send function:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.sendkeys.send(v=vs.110).aspx

To specify characters that aren't displayed when you press a key, such as ENTER or TAB, and keys that represent actions rather than characters, use the codes in the following table:

Key	Code
BACKSPACE	{BACKSPACE}, {BS}, or {BKSP}
BREAK	{BREAK}
CAPS LOCK	{CAPSLOCK}
DEL or DELETE	{DELETE} or
DOWN ARROW	{DOWN}
END	{END}
ENTER	{ENTER} or ~
ESC	{ESC}
HELP	{HELP}
HOME	{HOME}
INS or INSERT	{INSERT} or
LEFT ARROW	{LEFT}
NUM LOCK	{NUMLOCK}
PAGE DOWN	{PGDN}
PAGE UP	{PGUP}
PRINT SCREEN	{PRTSC} (reserved for future use)
RIGHT ARROW	{RIGHT}
SCROLL LOCK	{SCROLLLOCK}
TAB	{TAB}
UP ARROW	{UP}
F1	{F1}
F2	{F2}
F3	{F3}
F4	{F4}
F5	{F5}
F6	{F6}
F7	{F7}
F8	{F8}
F9	{F9}
F10	{F10}
F11	{F11}
F12	{F12}
F13	{F13}
F14	{F14}
F15	{F15}
F16	{F16}
Keypad add	{ADD}
Keypad subtract	{SUBTRACT}
Keypad multiply	{MULTIPLY}
Keypad divide	{DIVIDE}

The plus sign (+), caret (^), percent sign (%), tilde (~), and parentheses () have special meanings to SendKeys. To specify one of these characters, enclose it within braces ({}). For example, to specify the plus sign, use "{+}". To specify brace characters, use "{{}" and "{}}".

SHIFT, CTRL and ALT

To specify keys combined with any combination of the SHIFT, CTRL, and ALT keys, precede the key code with one or more of the following codes:

Key	Code
SHIFT	+
CTRL	^
ALT	%

Example

In this example Rapise sends various key combinations to Windows Notepad.

Note: Global.DoSleep is used to slow down test execution and make test steps visible.

RVL version

JavaScript version

// Launch notepad
Global.DoLaunch("notepad.exe");
// Set focus to notepad
ActivateNotepad();
Global.DoSleep(1000);
// Send text to the application
Global.DoSendKeys("Hello World!");
Global.DoSleep(1000);
// Select all text by passing CTRL+a key combination
Global.DoSendKeys("^a");
Global.DoSleep(1000);
// Send DELETE key
Global.DoSendKeys("{DEL}");
Global.DoSleep(1000);
// Send two lines of text
Global.DoSendKeys("First line{ENTER}Second line{ENTER}");
Global.DoSleep(1000);
// Send a series of characters with SHIFT key pressed
Global.DoSendKeys("+(abcdefg)");
Global.DoSleep(1000);
// Close notepad
Global.DoKillByPid();

To run RVL or JavaScript version of this example place the following function to User.js.

function ActivateNotepad()
{
    var wnd = g_util.FindWindow("regex:.*", "Untitled - Notepad");
    if (wnd)
    {
        wnd.SetFocus();
    }
}

See Also

• How-Tos