StringSender's sauce.

[Jason]

Hey guys, as you may or may not know I released a library called "StringSender.dll" a long time ago. The other day TimoTerremoto‎ had a problem with the dll so I decided to re-open the old project and see what the problem might have been. When I saw the code I'll admit I was a bit disgusted at how n00b I was back then; there was a LOT of poor coding going on there. Anyway, now I've freshened the code up a bit, I thought I'd share it with everyone.

Unfortunately the syntax highlighting plugin isn't working so well.

Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices
Public Class KeySender

    <DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError:=True)> _
    Private Shared Function keybd_event(ByVal bVk As Byte, ByVal bScan As Byte, ByVal dwFlags As UInt32, ByVal dwExtraInfo As UIntPtr) As Boolean
    End Function

    Public Shared Sub SendString(ByVal message As String, Optional ByVal pauseLength As Int32 = 0)
        Dim ASCII As String = message.ToUpper() '//Asc only works on upper case letters properly.
        For i As Integer = 0 To message.Length - 1 '//loop through the characters.
            Dim vk As Byte = CType(Asc(ASCII(i)), Byte)
            If Char.IsUpper(message(i)) Then 'check if the original character is uppercase
                SendTwoKeys(16, vk) 'if so, send the shift key + the key.
            Else
                SendKey(vk) 'otherwise just send the key.
            End If
            If pauseLength > 0 Then Threading.Thread.Sleep(pauseLength) 'if the user specified a pause length, pause for that time.
        Next i
    End Sub

    Public Shared Sub SendKey(ByVal vKeyCode As Byte)
        Try
            keybd_event(vKeyCode, 0, 0, UIntPtr.Zero) 'key down
            Threading.Thread.Sleep(5) 'very light tap on the keyboard.
            keybd_event(vKeyCode, 0, 2, UIntPtr.Zero) 'key up
        Catch ex As Exception
        End Try
    End Sub

    Public Shared Sub SendTwoKeys(ByVal firstKey As Byte, ByVal secondKey As Byte)
        Try
            keybd_event(firstKey, 0, 0, UIntPtr.Zero) 'hold down key 1
            keybd_event(secondKey, 0, 0, UIntPtr.Zero) 'hold down key 2
            System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(20) 'let the key register
            keybd_event(secondKey, 0, 2, UIntPtr.Zero) 'release key 2
            keybd_event(firstKey, 0, 2, UIntPtr.Zero) 'release key 1
        Catch ex As Exception
        End Try
    End Sub
End Class

Enjoy.

[TimoTerremoto]

Hey Jason!

I will attach it to my BOT class and 'hopefully' see if it works

Thank you very much for sharing the code, I really appreciate it.
Timo

[TimoTerremoto]

Hello again,

Since I cannot send you private messages I post my question here, sorry for the maybe little off-topic.

I used your code and realized that I cannot include it the way I wanted, I just realized that keybd_event has no hWnd. The main reason I needed the code was for movement, since with my actual code can bot the game even if its not active (in background, NOT minimized, everything works except for movement) and it is based on PostMessage an SendMessage. The movement is somehow protected and it works well with keybd_event (your code) but it only works if the windows is active (selected). Man what a headache. hehe.

EDIT: I may make a Form that shows up for 10 seconds advising, when certain task is done and movement is necessary, that says "the game is getting focused in 10 seconds, get ready and please don't touch anything until the character has arrived to his new position", once arrived at the new location, game is send back to background.

If you have any suggestion, please let me know.

Regards,
Timo