Use keyboard keys as is, not just typing

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Posted on by HellitonWoo

Hi fellows,

I'm trying to find a way the navigate between buttons and blanks.

It is rather hard to do so when there are no keys to use, such as:

Left, right, up, down
Tab, Page-up, Page-down

And there's no explanation of "Send text as hardware keys", what does that mean?

Thanks!

Helliton

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Power Automate Desktop

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FUS 150 on at

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I have a similar challenge.

In a window I use the right control button to navigate to next screen... and when I record my actions I get "{RControlKey}()".
However, when I replay it that part is "skipped".

In real life I might enter "Test1" then use the Right Control key and then type "Test2"
But when I run the line "Test1{RControlKey}()Test2"... the result is that on the first page it says "Test1Test2".

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adijain Microsoft Employee on at

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@HellitonWoo The "Send Keys" Action sends keystrokes to the application that is currently active. It can either be sent in the background as a software input or can be mimicked like from a keyboard when sent as hardware keys. To simulate key-presses inside a Send Keys Action, use the following notation: {KeyCode}. where KeyCode is the capital form of the letter itself for letters A-Z. OemSemicolon for ';', Oemplus for '+', Oemcomma for ',', OemMinus for '-', OemPeriod for '.', OemQuestion for '?', Oemtilde for '~', OemOpenBrackets for '[', OemPipe for '|', etc.

In your case you can use:

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adijain Microsoft Employee on at

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Hello @FUS , please utilize Test1{RControlKey}Test2 for your case.

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FUS 150 on at

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Thanks @adijain for the tip... but it didn't work.... {RControlKey} just getting skipped... even if I send it as "Hardware keys".
Even tried to use screenrecord to get the "{RControlKey}" so I know it's the same... but still doesn't work.

Then I tried others like {Tab}, {F11} & {Enter}... and those seem to work just as expected.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the system I'm using, but since everything else works, why would this one key not work?

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HellitonWoo 39 on at

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@FUS I found this page, which seems explaining all the key references described by @adijain
https://referencesource.microsoft.com/#windowsbase/Base/System/Windows/Input/Key.cs,e89a228c9dc1bd2c,references

You can try these:
{RightCtrl}

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FUS 150 on at

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Thanks for the tip @HellitonWoo.
But unfortunately didn't "{RightCtrl}" work either... it just printed it out on the screen as text. 😞

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adijain Microsoft Employee on at

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Hello @FUS I am sorry to hear that but {RControlKey} is the correct keycode to send right control key. Could you try adding a wait time after the control key is sent? You can do that within send keys action by using this key code {Delay 1000} - this will allow you to "wait" for 1 second prior to sending the rest keystrokes that follow this modifier. I would also suggest using just the key code {ControlKey} for sending any of the control keystroke, and see if that works for your use case.

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FUS 150 on at

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Hi @adijain.
It didn't work, but I did try to use Crtl in word where it worked, so I tried other "specialkeys" in the application which worked.
So I decided to look deeper into the application and found out that the PC key (Right Ctrl) uses a function for "Enter" and so did (Keypad Enter).

With some experimenting I found out that {Keypad} had the desired effect... even though I'm using a laptop without a keypad.

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Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee on at

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I also have similar issue. Can i have syntax for "CTRL+Home"?

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MichaelAnnis 5,727 Moderator on at

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{Control}({Home})

For special keys, parenthesis identify a hold down for whatever is inside it, so '{Control}{Home} is pressing Control, then pressing Home, but by putting Home in parenthesis after Control, it is Control + Home.

Good luck!

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