Send keys to an app not in focus

[JunglesMcBeef]

G'day,

I'm trying to create a console program that opens IE and sends keys to log in. I have already got it working so the browser opens and can be sent keys while in focus, but I don't want the browser to be in focus when I send the keys. Is there a way to do this?

Also, is there some sort of way to determine whether the current site has loaded completely? I have just used System.Threading.Thread.Sleep to allow some time before execution continues to allow the site to load, but this is not efficient and means if a dial-up connection is used (or there is spyware/adware/viruses taking up bandwidth) that the console will have to wait longer.

 

[Dimandja]

Sendkeys needs the receiver to be in focus (AppActivated). Or use other Windows tools such as the SendMessage Function.

Sendkeys does not know where the receiver is ready to accept -- you'll not get any status messages. SendMessage will wait for the message to be processed by the receiver.

 

[ca8msm]

You can use a httpwebrequest to post data to a web page so you could do that and have an embedded web browser on your form to show the results.

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[JunglesMcBeef]

Ok, but how do I tell whether the page has loaded completely? I don't want to show any results because i'm just logging onto a site and opening another page from it. I can't open the other page until the link has appeared on the page (which only occurs once the page has loaded).

 

[Dimandja]

I believe the HTTP request will return only after the page has loaded, unless you set a timeout limit.