How do I a trigger keyboard event in ruby?

Question

I want to trigger certain key-presses like enter, esc and arrow keys. I've googled and am surprised to not be able to find the solution.

EDIT

More specifically, I want to trigger some global keyboard shortcuts through ruby script.

There's a gem called AXElements, see http://stackoverflow.com/a/25382115/477037 — Stefan, Sep 09 '14 at 12:07
Thanks Stefan, trying it out. Running into some errors but fighting them. Also trying the answer below by p11y. — Chirantan, Sep 09 '14 at 12:39

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:46

On OS X, you can use AppleScript to do that. Here's an example that performs the keyboard shortcut cmd + alt + ctrl + W

tell application "System Events" 
  keystroke "w" using {control down, option down, command down}
end tell

For the arrow keys, use key code instead of keystroke:

# Key codes for arrow keys:
# 
# LEFT  123
# RIGHT 124
# UP    126
# DOWN  125

tell application "System Events" 
  key code 123 using {control down, option down, command down}
end tell

You can invoke AppleScript from Ruby by shelling out to osascript:

def osascript(script)
  system 'osascript', *script.split(/\n/).map { |line| ['-e', line] }.flatten
end

osascript <<-END
  tell application "System Events" 
    keystroke "w" using {control down, option down, command down}
  end tell
END

Sources

The [applescript keycodes](http://eastmanreference.com/complete-list-of-applescript-key-codes/) can be found at the link provided :) — mbigras, Feb 20 '17 at 07:51

How do I a trigger keyboard event in ruby?

1 Answers1