Need some advice on a C++ project idea

[CreativeEcko]

I'm not a well versed programmer, but I've made a couple of things so far, right now I am trying to make a background process that will run and detect if a window is active and if so, enable custom hotkeys/shortcuts, but I would like to go a step further and include a system tray gui to allow people to customize the output result of a certain key combination.

I have an idea but not too sure how to go about this. My main concern is that I need it to work on Mac, Linux and Windows. The development machine is Windows.

This is a usage example:
- The coded shortcut is: ctrl + mouse click
- The output will be mapped to: ctrl + 1 (when ctrl + click is performed)
- User can customize the output hotkey combination but not the shortcut.
- Only activates the above if a certain window or process is active, otherwise ignores all custom shortcuts.

I'm hoping for more than most will be willing to give me with this but mostly, I would love an idea of what I can use to develop this cross platform with a low footprint and if possible an example of how I can allow the code to be customized from a system tray options gui and relay that to the code.

I know that this isn't very complex for some of you veterans out there but for me it is, and I am trying to search for answers to get started or what may be best to use but I'm coming up with very limiting results and I'm at a loss, I'd appreciate any response. Thanks in advance! I'm willing to put in effort, I'm not asking you to do all of the work for me but I'm stuck for what to use and how I can allow the custom side of it.

[SamuelAdams]

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5607849/how-to-simulate-a-key-press-in-c

[CreativeEcko]

Thanks Samuel, the more confusing part to me is how I can allow the user to customize the output command more than setting up the initial key remapping. Also getting it running across multiple platforms.