.NET Program that runs in the background [Answered]
How would I make an .exe program in c# .NET that runs in the background (It will have a tray icon instead). It will be used for capturing certain hotkey presses
AWhat does it do?
And is the tray icon required (may significantly increase complexity)?
And is the tray icon required (may significantly increase complexity)?
EThe program will help me copy and paste things easily. It will be set up to capture a set of hotkeys for example CMD+G+1-9 (I need help figuring out how to recognize the inputs) and for each number will store highlighted text (again something that I need help with) and will have an associated paste function. This project is very non-concrete and I’m still in the research phase so I may scrap it if this is too hard to do. Another idea would be when CMD+c is pressed, it use the next keystroke (1-9) to store the data copied from CMD+c. It would be much, much easier to just make it a vscode extension, but before I resort to that I would like to see if I could make something that works on other programs like VS too. The tray icon is not required at all and just something to easily kill the program. If it will make it too complex, I don’t have to include it
AAh, that actually clarifies it a good amount. I was initially thinking of a Worker Services app, but that no longer seems appropriate since those have some limitations
AYou could make an invisible WPF app potentially, since that should let you interact with tray icons and the clipboard
EThat sounds like a good idea (especially because I’ve worked with wpf before). How would I have a WPF app the doesn’t have any content
EItbwould also be nice if it runs in the background/doesn’t have a tab on my pc
AFor the tray icon you can use the nuget. That's what I use
E
AIn the App xaml you can do something like this
ASome of those tags may not be required. I did something similar for a notification popup app
EOk
EThanks
Jyou can PInvoke the function i think that should work
Ji see you said in another thread you didnt get it to work?
AI just use ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
ESo I have copying selected text working and registering hotkeys with the RegisterHotKey function, but I would have to make 10 RegisterHotKey functions, so Is there a better way to do it? (maybe register if any of the ALT+0-9 keys pressed with a value signifying which one it is)
Elike some way to get a general 0-9 key as the last param of RegisterHotKey and read it using HwndHook (((int)lParam >> 16) & 0xFFFF)
E@The Court Jester ^
J@Ezlanding you could use global raw input, then you get all the key presses
Jbasically a keylogger
Jbut its a lot of work to the the interop for that yourself
ECan you share a Microsoft docs page on it?
JThis topic discusses user-input from devices such as joysticks, touch screens, and microphones.
EThanks
J@Ezlanding i can give you some c# code i wrote for this
EThat would be good
EThanks
JEThanks
EWhat’s the unsafe modifier?
Jim using pointers so the code is "unsafe"
EK
J has to point to a struct on the stack or a pinned / fixed array
Ji use the CsWin32 nuget package to do the interop for me, or you could use TerraFX
ESo this writes the currently pressed to key to out_raw_input?
Jyes
Jyou call on the event
EE@The Court Jester I am getting some errors like also how excacly do I use this function? will it block the character or only capture the input?
Jit doesnt block the keys from reaching where they are going
Ji cant help much rn
Ethat may be a little bit of a dealbreaker as it will overwrite the selected text
Eis it ok to have 14 registerhotkey functions?
Jits not possible to block key input or at least not easely
Ji dont think it matters
Ek then Ill use a whole bunch of registerhotkeys
A
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