Blocking Certain Keyboard Input

[Michael Sadlon]

I am not 100% sure how keyboard input works, so I thought I'd ask it here. I already asked about blocking joystick devices in C++, but I got no answers :doh: See here: http://www.codeproject.com/script/comments/forums.asp?msg=2038033&forumid=1647&mode=all&userid=4049045#xx2038033xx [^] Mostly, I am curious if there is a way to detect keyboard input from a "real keyboard" and differentiate it from a clicker/macro program. I want to do this in C++. I know there are WinAPI functions as well as Direct3d functions for such things, but I couldn't find any information on if it's possible to tell them apart. Any answers would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Perspx]

You can use SetWindowsHookEx() with the WH_KEYBOARD_LL parameter to monitor all low-level keyboard messages. From the callback function, LowLevelKeyboardProc(), you can block any of the messages by returning a nonzero value, so that the message isn't sent to the target window. You could do something like this: ... //Prototypes LRESULT CALLBACK WndProc(HWND hwnd, UINT msg, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam); LRESULT CALLBACK LowLevelKeyboardProc(int nCode, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam); ... //Global variables HHOOK hLowlevelKeyboardHook; //Low-level keyboard hook handle ... //Main Window Callback function LRESULT CALLBACK WndProc(HWND hwnd, UINT msg, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam) { ... switch(msg) { case WM_CREATE: hLowlevelKeyboardHook=SetWindowsHookEx(WH_KEYBOARD_LL, //Low-level keyboard messages      LowLevelKeyboardProc, //Hook Callback function      NULL, //Monitor all system messages      0 //Monitor all system messages      ); break; } ... } ... LRESULT CALLBACK LowLevelKeyboardProc(int nCode, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam) { LPKBDLLHOOKSTRUCT kbdst; if(nCode<0) //No message to process return CallNextHookEx(hLowlevelKeyboardHook, nCode, wParam, lParam); //Block all keyboard messages, if they are the letter 'A' kbdst=(LPKBDLLHOOKSTRUCT)lParam; if(kbdst->vkCode==41) return -1; //Otherwise, send the message to the next hook return CallNextHookEx(hLowlevelKeyboardHook, nCode, wParam, lParam); } Hope this helps! --PerspX