How to record keys pressed?

Question

Essentially I want to record every key press (including keydown/keyup and mouse clicks) and when they occurred so that I can create a macro out of them.

I found a ton of stuff about key presses and WinForms or WPF, but I don't really need a GUI, I just want to dump it out to the console after I'm done processing it.

So how can I record all key presses, even when my console window doesn't have focus?

Sample output:

Send {q down}
Sleep 98
Send {q up}
Sleep 4
Send {f down}
Sleep 102
Send {f up}
Sleep 43
Send {a down}
Sleep 26
Send {s down}
Sleep 111
Send {a up}
Sleep 18
Send {s up}
Sleep 17
Send {a down}
Sleep 62
Send {space down}
Sleep 72
Send {a up}
Sleep 5
Send {space up}

Using WPF for now, but the input text field has to be focused. I'd rather be able to record the keystrokes while I'm in my game, hence the question :)

this might help:http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.control.keypress.aspx#Y435 — Saher Ahwal, Jul 21 '11 at 02:17
@Saher: No..that's winforms again. All my google search results turn up like that, but I don't even have any "controls" to listen on. I just want to get ALL key events, globally, regardless of who or what has focus. — mpen, Jul 21 '11 at 02:20
Here's a sample C# keylogger that at least should get you down the right path. It's also a winforms app, but utilizes a global hook to log keypresses regardless of what application has focus: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/CSLLKeyboardHook.aspx — Darth Continent, Jul 21 '11 at 02:20
@Jesus: Notice that Mark specified that the key recording would be in a console and used for macros. — Paul Sasik, Jul 21 '11 at 02:21
@Paul yeah but I mean what else would you call something that reads keys from global keypresses? — Jesus Ramos, Jul 21 '11 at 02:48
@Jesus: I was reacting to you calling it a keylogger, which is a classic trojan horse app and therefore has negative connotation. So, I thought you were accusing Mark of writing a trojan horse keylogger. — Paul Sasik, Jul 21 '11 at 02:59

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 21 '11 at 02:23

1

Have a look at the SetWindowsHookEx function. This can be used to monitor keystrokes across the system.

answered Jul 21 '11 at 02:23

Paul Alexander

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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 21 '11 at 02:24

1

As far as I know, in order to accomplish this you will need to hook into Win32 API.

This project may help you get started.

answered Jul 21 '11 at 02:24

Tom Studee

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score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 21 '11 at 02:24

1

Just a suggestion, you should take a close look at keyboard low level hooks, they (for the most part) work between consoles and winforms. This might be of some help as well: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/toub/archive/2006/05/03/589423.aspx

answered Jul 21 '11 at 02:24

Jess

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score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 21 '11 at 02:25

1

try this

[DllImport("user32.dll")]
static extern IntPtr SetWindowsHookEx
    (int idHook, keyboardHookProc callback, IntPtr hInstance, uint threadId);

answered Jul 21 '11 at 02:25

Yahia

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score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 06 '12 at 02:35

1

I too was looking for this- found this link which provides a class which does it all :)

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/CSLLKeyboardHook.aspx

answered Jan 06 '12 at 02:35

Jack

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score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Jan 06 '12 at 04:43

You can use HwndSource.FromHwnd method to return an HwndSource for

a window where HwndSource represents WPFcontent within a Win32 window

Then AddHook method is used to add a callback method named CallBackMethod,

which will receive all messages for the window. For this, the following code has been used:

HwndSource windowSpecificOSMessageListener = HwndSource.FromHwnd(new 
WindowInteropHelper(this).Handle);
windowSpecificOSMessageListener.AddHook(new HwndSourceHook(CallBackMethod));

In the Callback Method, all the OS messages of this window specific is received.

private IntPtr CallBackMethod(IntPtr hwnd,
int msg, IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam, ref bool handled)
{
    // msg can be WM_KEYDOWN = 0x0100, WM_KEYUP = 0x0101 and so forth.
    // Add you code
}

How to record keys pressed?

6 Answers6