How do I a trigger keyboard event in ruby?

Question

I want to trigger certain key-presses like enter, esc and arrow keys. I've googled and am surprised to not be able to find the solution.

EDIT

More specifically, I want to trigger some global keyboard shortcuts through ruby script.

There's a gem called AXElements, see stackoverflow.com/a/25382115/477037 — Stefan
– Stefan, Commented Sep 9, 2014 at 12:07
Thanks Stefan, trying it out. Running into some errors but fighting them. Also trying the answer below by p11y. — Chirantan
– Chirantan, Commented Sep 9, 2014 at 12:39

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 11:46:11Z

2

On OS X, you can use AppleScript to do that. Here's an example that performs the keyboard shortcut cmd + alt + ctrl + W

tell application "System Events" 
  keystroke "w" using {control down, option down, command down}
end tell

For the arrow keys, use key code instead of keystroke:

# Key codes for arrow keys:
# 
# LEFT  123
# RIGHT 124
# UP    126
# DOWN  125

tell application "System Events" 
  key code 123 using {control down, option down, command down}
end tell

You can invoke AppleScript from Ruby by shelling out to osascript:

def osascript(script)
  system 'osascript', *script.split(/\n/).map { |line| ['-e', line] }.flatten
end

osascript <<-END
  tell application "System Events" 
    keystroke "w" using {control down, option down, command down}
  end tell
END

Sources

edited May 23, 2017 at 11:46

CommunityBot

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answered Sep 9, 2014 at 12:35

Patrick Oscity

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1 Comment

mbigras Over a year ago

The applescript keycodes can be found at the link provided :)

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