SendKeys Class

Definition

public ref class SendKeys

public class SendKeys

type SendKeys = class

Public Class SendKeys

Inheritance

Object

SendKeys

Examples

The following code example demonstrates how to use the Send method. To run the example, paste the following code in a form called Form1 containing a button called Button1. Ensure the click events are associated with their event-handling methods in this example. The button control's TabIndex property should be set to 0. When the example is running, double-click the form to trigger the button's click event.

private:
   // Clicking Button1 causes a message box to appear.
   void Button1_Click( System::Object^ /*sender*/, System::EventArgs^ /*e*/ )
   {
      MessageBox::Show( "Click here!" );
   }

   // Use the SendKeys.Send method to raise the Button1 click event 
   // and display the message box.
   void Form1_DoubleClick( Object^ /*sender*/, System::EventArgs^ /*e*/ )
   {
      
      // Send the enter key; since the tab stop of Button1 is 0, this
      // will trigger the click event.
      SendKeys::Send( "{ENTER}" );
   }

// Clicking Button1 causes a message box to appear.
private void Button1_Click(System.Object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
    MessageBox.Show("Click here!");
}

// Use the SendKeys.Send method to raise the Button1 click event 
// and display the message box.
private void Form1_DoubleClick(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{

    // Send the enter key; since the tab stop of Button1 is 0, this
    // will trigger the click event.
    SendKeys.Send("{ENTER}");
}

' Clicking Button1 causes a message box to appear.
Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, _
    ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
    MessageBox.Show("Click here!")
End Sub


' Use the SendKeys.Send method to raise the Button1 click event 
' and display the message box.
Private Sub Form1_DoubleClick(ByVal sender As Object, _
    ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.DoubleClick

    ' Send the enter key; since the tab stop of Button1 is 0, this
    ' will trigger the click event.
    SendKeys.Send("{ENTER}")
End Sub

Remarks

Use SendKeys to send keystrokes and keystroke combinations to the active application. This class cannot be instantiated. To send a keystroke to a class and immediately continue with the flow of your program, use Send. To wait for any processes started by the keystroke, use SendWait.

Each key is represented by one or more characters. To specify a single keyboard character, use the character itself. For example, to represent the letter A, pass in the string "A" to the method. To represent more than one character, append each additional character to the one preceding it. To represent the letters A, B, and C, specify the parameter as "ABC".

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 "{}}". Brackets ([ ]) have no special meaning to SendKeys, but you must enclose them in braces. In other applications, brackets do have a special meaning that might be significant when dynamic data exchange (DDE) occurs.

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.

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.

To specify that any combination of SHIFT, CTRL, and ALT should be held down while several other keys are pressed, enclose the code for those keys in parentheses. For example, to specify to hold down SHIFT while E and C are pressed, use "+(EC)". To specify to hold down SHIFT while E is pressed, followed by C without SHIFT, use "+EC".

To specify repeating keys, use the form {key number}. You must put a space between key and number. For example, {LEFT 42} means press the LEFT ARROW key 42 times; {h 10} means press H 10 times.

Methods

Applies to