Artificial/simulated key press

Hi

I'm trying to make a work-around for the problem of not being able to automatically select all text in an edit box when selecting the box. The solution of pressing "ctrl+a" just isn't efficient enough.

So, what I'm wondering is the following: Is there a way for MatLab to simulate a key-press - an artificial key press - so that i can execute a "ctrl+a" on selecting the edit box?

The goal is to make the edit box work as a "normal", select-all-on-press edit box.

If you have informations regarding if this is or isn't possible, please reply. Thanks in advance.

/Tobias

Answer 1

[Tobias Litherland]

Thank you! I followed the link, and and ended up solving it with the following code. This is a callback function for ButtonDownFcn in the edit box. Selects all text on a left-click of the mouse.

 %Initialize the java engine 
            import java.awt.*;
            import java.awt.event.*;
            %Create a Robot-object to do the key-pressing
            rob=Robot;
            %Commands for pressing keys:
            % If the text cursor isn't in the edit box allready, then it
            % needs to be placed there for ctrl+a to select the text.
            % Therefore, we make sure the cursor is in the edit box by
            % forcing a mouse button press:
            rob.mousePress(InputEvent.BUTTON1_MASK );
            rob.mouseRelease(InputEvent.BUTTON1_MASK );
            % CONTROL + A :
            rob.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_CONTROL)
            rob.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_A)
            rob.keyRelease(KeyEvent.VK_A)
            rob.keyRelease(KeyEvent.VK_CONTROL)
end

Thanks again!

Answer 2

[Paulo Silva]

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/newsreader/view_thread/243113