How to dispatch a keyboard event?

[Devin-]

I am submitting this question a second time because my first question was marked as spam for some reason.

The tools guide (page 152) documents how to create and dispatch a keyboard event, using initKeyboardEvent. I have been unable to get that to work, and I haven't been able to find working sample on the internet.

// This test is in the onChanging event to eliminate lack of focus as the source of the problem
var odd = false;
editText.onChanging = function editText_onChanging() {
  // This odd is here just to prevent a looping problem if keyboard event starts to work and triggers onChanging again
  odd = !odd;
  if (!odd) {
    return;
  }
  var keyboardEvent = ScriptUI.events.createEvent('KeyboardEvent');
  // Tried with and without keydown, and with and without bubble.
  // In addition to 'r' I have tried 'R' and 0x52 (which is VK_R).
  // I have also tried using 'w' as my view (the main window).
  keyboardEvent.initKeyboardEvent('keydown', false, false, editText, 'r', keyboardEvent.DOM_KEY_LOCATION_STANDARD, '');
  keyboardEvent.initKeyboardEvent('keyup', false, false, editText, 'r', keyboardEvent.DOM_KEY_LOCATION_STANDARD, '');
  editText.dispatchEvent(keyboardEvent);
}

Is the keyboard dispatching stuff no longer working?

Thanks

[gregoryw80731704]

NT Productions recently uploaded this tutorial that might help https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBqdWdDmvao

[Devin-]

Thanks for the great reference. This person's channel looks like it will be useful. Unfortunately this particular video only addresses handling keyboard events, not firing keyboard events.

[gregoryw80731704]

I don't think you can fire keyboard events otherwise you might be able to do nefarious things to peoples computers.

[Devin-]

According to documentation, the keyboard events have targets, like Script UI controls, not necessarily the system as a whole. What is mysterious is if it weren't possible, why are methods like initKeyboardEvent documented?

If Nefarious things were a concern, they wouldn't have made scripts have direct access to the file system, or make it possible to enable Chromium extensions with NodeJS, or to allow calls to system.callSystem()...