Invoking keyboard keys, through proc - procedure (function) in tcl

Question

In front of the internet, I could only find so far, just the reverse where the key-related event is associated with the front-end button, not the front-end button that invokes a key. Understood ?! Look:

#!/usr/bin/env wish

button .b1 -text Hello -underline 0
button .b2 -text World -underline 0
bind . {.b1 flash; .b1 invoke}
bind . {.b2 flash; .b2 invoke}
pack .b1 .b2

Explanation - If you press a H button, the Hello button will blink. And the same effect happens with W; World

I want the Front-end [GUI] button to simulate the keystroke, for example - F1

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I asked that question a week or two ago. Since I did not get any plausible answer, I do not know if it is possible, or no one knows, or nobody cares.

I want to send a non tcl / tk application under UNIX GNU / Linux some keys for a very simple toolbar control. For the application must be the same as if these keys were hit on the keyboard. In VisualBasic The function is called SendKey. Is it possible to do this with tcl / tk?

I will describe how to do this using Windows Script Host and tcom:

Windows Script Host 2.0 beta (which you can download from http://msdn.microsoft.com/scripting/windowshost/beta/) includes a COM object that implements a SendKeys function.
tcom 1.7 (available at http://www.vex.net/~cthuang/tcom/) is a Windows-specific Tcl extension that allows Tcl scripts to access COM objects.

In this example, the Tcl script starts Notepad and sends keys to the application.

package requires tcom

configure wshShell [:: tcom :: bind "WScript.Shell"]
set taskId [$ wshShell Run "notepad.exe"]
$ wshShell AppActivate $ taskId
after 500
$ wshShell SendKeys "The quick brown fox jumped \ n"
$ wshShell SendKeys "{TAB} about the lazy dog."
:: tcom :: release $ wshShell

On UNIX; Linux how to accomplish this ??? It would be by focus method, inverse bind or third party application xvkbd, xbindkeys, xkeycaps, xev, xjoypad etc ... Which to use and how to use if tcl/tk does not have one built-in command?!

If somebody knows and/or can clarify me, I'll be grateful.

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 17 '18 at 11:14

xdotool (http://www.semicomplete.com/projects/xdotool/) could help with that task.

Here's a short snippet that sends Ctrl+Tab to Chrome when clicking a Tk button:

#!/usr/bin/env wish

#
# Focus window named $window_name and send the specified key sequence.
#
proc send_key {window_name key_sequence} {
    foreach wid [exec xdotool search --name $window_name] {
        if {![catch {exec xdotool windowfocus $wid}]} {
            exec xdotool key $key_sequence
        }
    }
}

button .f1 \
    -text "Send Ctrl+Tab to Chrome (cycle through browser tabs)"  \
    -command {send_key chrome ctrl+Tab}
pack .f1

It's a bit problematic that you have to focus the window before you can send key sequences to it.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 13 '18 at 12:34

To generate a key, you need the event generate command.

event generate $w <KeyPress-F1> -x $x -y $y

You probably want to direct the event to the focus window, and the X and Y locations ought to be set to 0,0 if you don't have a better place (or alternatively use the -rootx and -rooty options and the winfo pointerxy command to use global coordinates).

There are many other fields you can set for a key-press event, but most of them aren't commonly used. (In particular, I think it's easier to set up the state field using modifiers to the event being generated rather than explicitly setting the -state option.)

Invoking keyboard keys, through proc - procedure (function) in tcl

2 Answers2