Two programs to receive keyboard input simultaneously?

[Juzernejm]

Hi,

A tough one here. Does anyone know a way to control 2 or more programs simultaneously? i.e. give focus to two programs?

My brother wants to control two games (full screen), on the same PC, at once, I assume that he only needs one to be maximized at a time, but the trouble is giving focus to one will cut the keyboard off from the other, Any way he can make this work?

 

[robphy]

I don't think you can give focus to two programs at the same time.
However, you can send keystrokes to a background program.
I don't think it could be "simultaneously"... but I sequentially fast-enough to be practically simultaneous.

http://www.autohotkey.com/ ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AutoHotkey )
http://www.autoitscript.com/ ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AutoIt )

 

[newjerseyrunner]

From within one program, you can open another one as a file descriptor and read and write to it.#include <cstdio> //<stdio.h> in C
FILE * fp = popen("yoursecondprogram --withargs", "w"); //write mode
if (fp == NULL) exit(1); //ERROR
fwrite(fp, 6, 1, "hello\r"); //Sends "hello" to the secondary program's stdin.

This is useful for proxying keyboard input, if you want things like key control for a game or something more real-time reactive, stdin is likely not what you want. You'll have to open up a socket communication between the two programs: The receiving program would have to open up a listening socket and the main program would have to send keyboard statuses through it. I have a similar issue right now where I want two different computers to control one two player game. I need a small helper program on the second computer to send commands over the network.

 

[Monotrop]

Hi everyone! I have the same problem!
I found a program called Cheat Engine, you can use the hotkey option and freeze/pause every game by clicking any key.
I just have to turn on 2 Cheat Engines and select a hotkey for processes for 2 opened games. When I push the key it freezes two games at the same time, so I think it's possible to control it simultaneously. But there's a problem, There is no option for moving characters in the game, just freezing or changing values. so I have a question is there a program which will let me select a procceses and control games simultaneously? Sorry for my English

 

[Carno Raar]

Hi,

A tough one here. Does anyone know a way to control 2 or more programs simultaneously? i.e. give focus to two programs?

My brother wants to control two games (full screen), on the same PC, at once, I assume that he only needs one to be maximized at a time, but the trouble is giving focus to one will cut the keyboard off from the other, Any way he can make this work?

For games use ISBoxer. It's purpose built for this.

http://isboxer.com/

It has a lot of features. For example it can chop up the game UI and display all the UIs from all your clients onto a separate screen.

Here's a guy playing 5 clients at once with ISBoxer

http://imgur.com/8IitCv1

Edited to change the screenshot. I just remembered that no-one who doesn'tplay Eve understands Eve screenshots ;-)

 

[Juzernejm]

Thanks Carno and everyone who tried to help me. ISBoxer is the solution of my problem.