C#•9mo ago

How to create a hotkey so the user can stop/pause the program.

I created a WPF app that automates mouse movements. When the program is active the user cannot press the stop button since the mouse is being used. How do I create a hotkey that can be pressed and stop the programming. I searched the internet and I found 2 options, but I don't know which is best 1. Use a side thread for the program and a main thread that listens for any hotkeys. Then the main thread either pauses or kills the side thread. 2. Use Task ? But I'm not sure how that works.

13 Replies

Buddy•9mo ago

What will it automate?

! 0FalcoOP•9mo ago

I have an album of feetpics on my pc but there are faulty photo's as well. It uses AI to check if its actually feet or not and deletes faulty pictures

Jimmacle•9mo ago

gotta give credit for a creative non-answer

lycian•9mo ago

Usually cancellation is done with CancellationToken. Create a CancellationTokenSource, get a token from it, and when the user hits the hotkey do CancellationTokenSource.Cancel Inside your working thread have

c#
while (true)
{
  cancellationToken.ThrowIfCancellationRequested(); // Or w/e it's called 

  // do one loop of work here
}

c#
while (true)
{
  cancellationToken.ThrowIfCancellationRequested(); // Or w/e it's called 

  // do one loop of work here
}

lycian•9mo ago

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.threading.cancellationtokensource?view=net-8.0

CancellationTokenSource Class (System.Threading)

Signals to a CancellationToken that it should be canceled.

Kuinox•9mo ago

Why do you need mouse clicks

! 0FalcoOP•9mo ago

Does this kill the thread instantly? Currently I found an alternative option. However, this option doesn't instantly stop the thread. It finishes it's loop first which takes about 5 sec which looks like this:

while (true)
{
  // Do work that takes about 5 sec
  worktedThread.Stop()
}

while (true)
{
  // Do work that takes about 5 sec
  worktedThread.Stop()
}

When the user presses the hotkey the program still runs x seconds. I was hoping for an option that instantly kills the thread and stops the mouse from being interrupted. Was wondering if this was possible without me having to write checks every 2 lines.

Jimmacle•9mo ago

cancellation tokens are cooperative, the task/thread has to be periodically checking if it's cancelled or not you don't want to abort threads abruptly, you can corrupt the state of your program

! 0FalcoOP•9mo ago

I thought about that. But there is no data related stuff going on in the workerthread, so I thought I would be fine. Workerthread is just doing mouse clicks

Jimmacle•9mo ago

i'm still confused why you need mouse clicks at all why does a file processing program need any UI automation can you not just open the file and feed it into whatever model you're using for categorization?

! 0FalcoOP•9mo ago

I could, but I need to automate other stuff as well. So I thought why not just make an autoclicker lol But it's beside the point anyway

Jimmacle•9mo ago

UI automation is basically the most difficult and least reliable way of automating anything

! 0FalcoOP•9mo ago

I don't even have to use threads but I want to learn how they work

Gaming

Programming

How to create a hotkey so the user can stop/pause the program.