FLTK interface - Program not accepting PRESS commands

Bob Hansen · Post by **Bob Hansen** » Fri Mar 19, 2004 6:04 pm

I have run into a new Windows application that does not accept Press F9/F10 commands, and I am seeing other anomolies. I was assured by the developers that the program would support all Windows keyboard functions, etc. It would appear that this program is not using standard Windows objects?
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The program is written using a modified version of the FLTK library. The Fast Lite Toolkit (FLTK), is availabile at http://www.fltk.org. Here is info from that page.

FLTK (pronounced "fulltick") is a cross-platform C++ GUI toolkit for UNIXÃ‚Â®/LinuxÃ‚Â® (X11), MicrosoftÃ‚Â® WindowsÃ‚Â®, and MacOSÃ‚Â® X. FLTK provides modern GUI functionality without the bloat and supports 3D graphics via OpenGLÃ‚Â® and its built-in GLUT emulation. It is currently maintained by a small group of developers across the world with a central repository on SourceForge.

FLTK is designed to be small and modular enough to be statically linked - the "hello" program is only 97k when compiled on an x86 Linux system! FLTK also works fine as a shared library and is now being included on Linux distributions.

FLTK also includes an excellent UI builder called FLUID that can be used to create applications in minutes.

FLTK is provided under the terms of the GNU Library Public License, Version 2 with exceptions that allow for static linking.

FLTK 1.1.x is the current stable release branch. FLTK 1.2 is currently in development and available via CVS. Please see the software page for details. The first 1.2 beta releases will likely appear by the end of 2003, with a final release around the middle of 2004.

FLTK 1.2 will provide enhanced device, rendering, and style interfaces to support more platforms, printing, and application "skins".

1. Am I wasting my time trying to use Macro Scheduler with this application?

2. If not able to use now, do you see Macro Scheduler ever being able to use this interface?

3. If no future with Macro Scheduler, what do I need to pass to developers re information to allow Macro Scheduler interface capabilities?

support · Post by **support** » Fri Mar 19, 2004 6:15 pm

Hi,

Macro Scheduler simply sends the same windows messages that the user causes to be sent when he/she presses a key on the keyboard. Therefore any Windows application should respond as if that key was pressed - the same windows messages are being sent.

You could ask the developers how they respond to keyboard input .. perhaps they are somehow circumventing Windows and handling it at a different level.

Bob Hansen · Post by **Bob Hansen** » Fri Mar 19, 2004 9:25 pm

I am in unfamilliar territory here. But this is the response that I got from the application development team:

FLTK (and hence this application) uses the standard Window's event loop:

GetMessage
TranslateMessage
DispatchMessage

with a very typical WndProc catching the dispathed events. We use the WM_KEYDOWN, WM_SYSKEYDOWN, WM_KEYUP, and WM_SYSKEYUP, as well as the WM_DEADCHAR, WM_SYSDEADCHAR, WM_CHAR, and WM_SYSCHAR message events for keyboard handling.

If you want to check it out, FLTK can be downloaded - for free from http://www.fltk.org. The file of interest would be the Fl_win32.cxx file in the src directory.

Keyboard handling by us does not modify this portion of the FLTK source in any way.

Is it possible that Macro Scheduler is not using the Window's keyboard event loop - but is actually using DDE/OLE somewhat creatively?

I certainly don't know the answer, but I am sure you can help me out here. Here are some more specific details:

Send Characters/Text commands are working with the application, but not all of the Press commands. Press TAB and Press SHIFT appear to work. I haven't tested all the Press functions, but Press F9/F10 definitely do not work, and they are primary keys that I need in this application..

I have extracted the FL_win32.cxx file and can make it available. It is small, only 36012 bytes.

Lumumba · Post by **Lumumba** » Wed May 05, 2004 7:51 am

Hi Bob,
this guy seems to have solved a similar issue and provided this to the crowd: Rajat

Bob Hansen · Post by **Bob Hansen** » Wed May 05, 2004 10:44 pm

Thanks Lumumba.

I just took a look at the messages and the specs. It is obvious that it will take some effor on my part, but the possibilities look very good.

Thanks for remembering about this. I had put it on back burner, but now can bring it forward again.

When I get to try it out, I will provide some feedback.