[feature]: Send keys without activating the app.

[Tekl]

What feature would you like to see in sendkeys?

It would be nice to send keys to an app which is in the background without activating it.

Other information:

Here's an example swift script that sends Cmd+Up to the Roon app.

#!/usr/bin/env swift
import Cocoa

func sendShortcutToProcess(bundleIdentifier: String, keyCode: CGKeyCode, modifierFlags: CGEventFlags) {
    if let targetProcess = NSRunningApplication.runningApplications(withBundleIdentifier: bundleIdentifier).first {
        let pid = targetProcess.processIdentifier
        guard let eventSource = CGEventSource(stateID: .hidSystemState) else {
            print("Failed to create event source")
            return
        }
        
        let keyDownEvent = CGEvent(keyboardEventSource: eventSource, virtualKey: keyCode, keyDown: true)!
        keyDownEvent.flags = modifierFlags
        keyDownEvent.postToPid(pid)
        
        let keyUpEvent = CGEvent(keyboardEventSource: eventSource, virtualKey: keyCode, keyDown: false)!
        keyUpEvent.flags = modifierFlags
        keyUpEvent.postToPid(pid)
    }
}

// Usage: Call the function with the desired bundle identifier, key code, and modifier flags
sendShortcutToProcess(bundleIdentifier: "com.roon.Roon", keyCode: 126, modifierFlags: .maskCommand)

[socsieng]

Thanks for the feedback.

It should now be possible to achieve this behaviour by including the following flags --targeted and --no-activate

Example:

sendkeys --application-name iTerm2 --targeted --no-activate --characters 'ls<c:enter>'

[Tekl]

Thanks a lot for implementing this so quickly.