For simulate key press in Linux, Windows and Mac in golang
This library simulates the key press on a keyboard. It runs on Linux, Windows and Mac.
Important :
package main
import (
"runtime"
"time"
"github.com/micmonay/keybd_event"
)
func main() {
kb, err := keybd_event.NewKeyBonding()
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
// For linux, it is very important to wait 2 seconds
if runtime.GOOS == "linux" {
time.Sleep(2 * time.Second)
}
// Select keys to be pressed
kb.SetKeys(keybd_event.VK_A, keybd_event.VK_B)
// Set shift to be pressed
kb.HasSHIFT(true)
// Press the selected keys
err = kb.Launching()
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
// Or you can use Press and Release
kb.Press()
time.Sleep(10 * time.Millisecond)
kb.Release()
// Here, the program will generate "ABAB" as if they were pressed on the keyboard.
}
For easy access to all the keys on the virtual keyboard, I have added more special keycodes constants VK_SP*
.
Below is an illustration showing the "VK_" symbols for each key on the keyboard:
On Linux this library uses uinput, which on the major distributions requires root permissions.
The easy solution is executing through root user (by using sudo
). A worse way is by changing the executable's permissions by using chmod
.
sudo groupadd uinput
sudo usermod -a -G uinput my_username
sudo udevadm control --reload-rules
echo "SUBSYSTEM==\"misc\", KERNEL==\"uinput\", GROUP=\"uinput\", MODE=\"0660\"" | sudo tee /etc/udev/rules.d/uinput.rules
echo uinput | sudo tee /etc/modules-load.d/uinput.conf
Another subtlety on Linux: it is important after creating the keybd_event
to wait 2 seconds before running first keyboard actions.
This library depends on Apple's frameworks, and I did not find a solution to cross-compile from another OS to MacOS.