Is it possible to "hook" keys?

[bleh]

Hey,

I want to leave an autoit file running in the background that looks for a key i press.
However, is it possible to "hook" the key that the key press ONLY sends to the autoit script and not to whatever program i currently work in?

[InunoTaishou]

Your first sentence sounds like a keylogger.

Your second sentence sounds like you want to use AccelKeys. Accel keys are like hotkeys that are only active when your GUI is in focus.

What are you trying to do? Could we get some more info.

[bleh]

No, if i wanted a keylogger it would have to look for every key pressed, wouldn't it?

I want to control an autoit script that is running in the background with my keyboard. Let's say with the F1 key.
Now the problem is, if i am in - for example - notepad and press F1, it will open the windows help, i don't want that.

I want to know if there is a way that the F1 key only gets recognized by autoit and not by notepad, while focus is not on the autoit script.

[InunoTaishou]

HotKeySet("{F1}", "Function")

 

[Bert]

hotkeyset is what you want. Understand you have to be careful for if you just use it without regard to the the window that has focus you can have undesired results. 

[bleh]

This works great! Exactly what i was looking for. Thanks to you two!

Thanks

[Miloud]

Yes you càn

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjh46PV3qXLAhXjIJoKHcNvASEQFggcMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fautoit.de%2Findex.php%2FThread%2F43012-GUIRegisterMsg-WM-KEYDOWN-funktioniert-nicht-KEYUP-geht%2F&usg=AFQjCNE_ZkRHTnzZu9DmtNtblvwTnNcHLw&bvm=bv.115339255,d.bGs

[TheSaint]

Another way of course, is to use _IsPressed, but you would need to be careful, and certainly use the DLL option for repetitive checking. That could solve the issue regarding another active program, but will chew up processing cycles if called too often, so a Sleep would be necessary. You would have to make it a unique key combo as well, or risk issues related to that, when using an editor or any program that takes input, etc.