- Forum
- Windows Programming
- Evdev Equivalent for Windows
Evdev Equivalent for Windows
I’ve been designing a keyboard macro program that takes control of a second keyboard and turns it into a giant macro pad. This is accomplished via Linux’s awesome evdev functionality. Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evdev
I need to find a similar library for Windows (for sharing and personal purposes) that has the following 2 features:
* Listening to a specific USB keyboard, not just general input.
* Taking full control of that keyboard so that any key events only go to the program and are not forwarded to the OS’s general input.
I realize that a rather flaky solution could be achieved by using a small Linux computer (like an RPI) as a go-between and then sending messages to a client program on Windows over TCP but that’s expensive, fragile, and bulky.
TL;DR: I am looking for a Windows equivalent of evdev with full control over a specific USB device.
Note that it doesn’t really matter what programming language it is implemented in, so long as it works.
Thanks for any help!
I need to find a similar library for Windows (for sharing and personal purposes) that has the following 2 features:
* Listening to a specific USB keyboard, not just general input.
* Taking full control of that keyboard so that any key events only go to the program and are not forwarded to the OS’s general input.
I realize that a rather flaky solution could be achieved by using a small Linux computer (like an RPI) as a go-between and then sending messages to a client program on Windows over TCP but that’s expensive, fragile, and bulky.
TL;DR: I am looking for a Windows equivalent of evdev with full control over a specific USB device.
Note that it doesn’t really matter what programming language it is implemented in, so long as it works.
Thanks for any help!
not sure exactly. start with what you can do... if you plug in 2 keyboards, do both work? Can you disable one in the devices?
you can hack a hardware driver out that may do what you want -- long ago, win98 or so, I had a joystick program that turned the JS data into letters in an instance of notepad, you could type about 10 letters with the buttons.
I am pretty sure you need to override one of them so windows cant use it for input. Its been done, but I do not know HOW. Its likely by shoving your own driver onto it, so its no longer a 'keyboard' which windows wants to own and do things with, but a 'device' that your software owns instead, like a plug in waffle maker that window's can't hijack.
you can hack a hardware driver out that may do what you want -- long ago, win98 or so, I had a joystick program that turned the JS data into letters in an instance of notepad, you could type about 10 letters with the buttons.
I am pretty sure you need to override one of them so windows cant use it for input. Its been done, but I do not know HOW. Its likely by shoving your own driver onto it, so its no longer a 'keyboard' which windows wants to own and do things with, but a 'device' that your software owns instead, like a plug in waffle maker that window's can't hijack.
Last edited on
Yeah dude, I've thought up maybe something similar.
The idea I was having was to have a dual sort of keyboard that went on the left and right sides of the regular keyboard, in which you had one key for each finger and something like a d-pad for each thumb. What you had was something like CTRL/Shift/ALT/Win under each finger so that what you did with your thumb had 16(ctrl + dpad, ctrl + shift + alt + win + dpad) different possibilities. Start with whatever key on your left or right hand and send that to another key on opposite hand, where now you can either stop or continue onto another code. With this, the idea is that you can go as fast as possible.
I merely wish we had a complete alphabet where er(like trapper) was its own letter, ee/ea/ie/ei for was replaced by something like a backwards E or something....in truth there are 34 letters and we are at least quite a primitive society to even try to do something else. Because if we did I would be a lot more inclined to care about something like this myself.
The idea I was having was to have a dual sort of keyboard that went on the left and right sides of the regular keyboard, in which you had one key for each finger and something like a d-pad for each thumb. What you had was something like CTRL/Shift/ALT/Win under each finger so that what you did with your thumb had 16(ctrl + dpad, ctrl + shift + alt + win + dpad) different possibilities. Start with whatever key on your left or right hand and send that to another key on opposite hand, where now you can either stop or continue onto another code. With this, the idea is that you can go as fast as possible.
I merely wish we had a complete alphabet where er(like trapper) was its own letter, ee/ea/ie/ei for was replaced by something like a backwards E or something....in truth there are 34 letters and we are at least quite a primitive society to even try to do something else. Because if we did I would be a lot more inclined to care about something like this myself.
Topic archived. No new replies allowed.