Library tutorials & articles

Simulating User Actions

Mouse Movements

Here is a neat little module letting you simulate the user moving the mouse, and clicking on objects. Particularly useful for tutorial-style help. To move the mouse, call SetCursorPos(x,y), where x and y are the xy co-ordinates on the screen (in pixels). Then call the LeftDown, LeftClick etc procedures to simulate the mouse clicking.

** Please note that this code does not work in Windows 2000. You need to use the SendInput API instead ***

Many thanks to Dominique for sending me this. (Originally published in our discussion list).

Option Explicit

Public Declare Sub mouse_event Lib "user32" (ByVal dwFlags As Long, ByVal dx As Long, ByVal dy As Long, ByVal cButtons As Long, ByVal dwExtraInfo As Long)

Public Declare Function SetCursorPos Lib "user32" (ByVal X As Long, ByVal Y As Long) As Long

Public Declare Function GetCursorPos Lib "user32" (lpPoint As POINTAPI) As Long
Public Const MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTDOWN = &H2
Public Const MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTUP = &H4
Public Const MOUSEEVENTF_MIDDLEDOWN = &H20
Public Const MOUSEEVENTF_MIDDLEUP = &H40
Public Const MOUSEEVENTF_RIGHTDOWN = &H8
Public Const MOUSEEVENTF_RIGHTUP = &H10
Public Const MOUSEEVENTF_MOVE = &H1

Public Type POINTAPI
    X As Long
    Y As Long
    End Type

Public Function GetCurrentX() As Long
Dim Position As POINTAPI
    GetCursorPos Position
    GetCurrentX = Position.X
End Function

Public Function GetCurrentY() As Long
Dim Position As POINTAPI
    GetCursorPos Position
    GetCurrentY = Position.Y
End Function

Public Sub LeftClick()
    LeftDown
    LeftUp
End Sub

Public Sub LeftDown()
    Mouse_Event MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTDOWN, 0, 0, 0, 0
End Sub

Public Sub LeftUp()
    Mouse_Event MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTUP, 0, 0, 0, 0
End Sub

Public Sub MiddleClick()
    MiddleDown
    MiddleUp
End Sub

Public Sub MiddleDown()
    Mouse_Event MOUSEEVENTF_MIDDLEDOWN, 0, 0, 0, 0
End Sub

Public Sub MiddleUp()
    Mouse_Event MOUSEEVENTF_MIDDLEUP, 0, 0, 0, 0
End Sub

Public Sub MoveMouse(xMove As Long, yMove As Long)
    Mouse_Event MOUSEEVENTF_MOVE, xMove, yMove, 0, 0
End Sub

Public Sub RightClick()
    RightDown
    RightUp
End Sub

Public Sub RightDown()
    Mouse_Event MOUSEEVENTF_RIGHTDOWN, 0, 0, 0, 0
End Sub

Public Sub RightUp()
    Mouse_Event MOUSEEVENTF_RIGHTUP, 0, 0, 0, 0
End Sub

Comments

  1. 29 Aug 2007 at 03:08
    This is col and all and im happy wit all the keys used i it, except for one, y is it that enter is not in the list when i type KeyPress(vbKey?
  2. 13 Apr 2007 at 21:03
    Hi, is there a C# version of this code, by the way thanks a lot for this code too, it helps me too much.

  3. 13 Sep 2006 at 07:51

    Will this code prevent the screensaver from beeing activated (if I just use the mouse movement now and then)?

    /Max

  4. 12 Feb 2005 at 21:20
    It might be a good idea to drop the second 'n' from ShiftOnn and CtrlOnn
  5. 07 Mar 2004 at 11:04

    I can't make it work.
    I'm using this code:

    Code:
    Private Sub tMover_Timer()
       Select Case tMover.Tag
       Case 0
           MoveMouse GetCurrentX + 10, GetCurrentY
           tMover.Tag = 1
       Case 1
           MoveMouse GetCurrentX + 10, GetCurrentY + 10
           tMover.Tag = 2
       Case 2
           MoveMouse GetCurrentX, GetCurrentY + 10
           tMover.Tag = 3
       Case 3
           MoveMouse GetCurrentX - 10, GetCurrentY + 10
           tMover.Tag = 4
       Case 4
           MoveMouse GetCurrentX - 10, GetCurrentY
           tMover.Tag = 5
       Case 5
           MoveMouse GetCurrentX - 10, GetCurrentY - 10
           tMover.Tag = 6
       Case 6
           MoveMouse GetCurrentX, GetCurrentY - 10
           tMover.Tag = 7
       Case 7
           MoveMouse GetCurrentX + 10, GetCurrentY - 10
           tMover.Tag = 0
       End Select
    End Sub

    To move the mouse around in a circle with a timer. But all it do is moving the mouse towards the bottom right corner. What am I doing wrong?

  6. 07 Mar 2004 at 10:53

    I can't make it work.
    I'm using this code:

    Code:
    Private Sub tMover_Timer()
       Select Case tMover.Tag
       Case 0
           MoveMouse GetCurrentX + 10, GetCurrentY
           tMover.Tag = 1
       Case 1
           MoveMouse GetCurrentX + 10, GetCurrentY + 10
           tMover.Tag = 2
       Case 2
           MoveMouse GetCurrentX, GetCurrentY + 10
           tMover.Tag = 3
       Case 3
           MoveMouse GetCurrentX - 10, GetCurrentY + 10
           tMover.Tag = 4
       Case 4
           MoveMouse GetCurrentX - 10, GetCurrentY
           tMover.Tag = 5
       Case 5
           MoveMouse GetCurrentX - 10, GetCurrentY - 10
           tMover.Tag = 6
       Case 6
           MoveMouse GetCurrentX, GetCurrentY - 10
           tMover.Tag = 7
       Case 7
           MoveMouse GetCurrentX + 10, GetCurrentY - 10
           tMover.Tag = 0
       End Select
    End Sub

    To move the mouse around in a circle with a timer. But all it do is moving the mouse towards the bottom right corner. What am I doing wrong?


    [edit] Nevermind. I thought that positions were absolute. They're relative

  7. 25 Nov 2003 at 20:38

    Many many thanks for this.


    I had found something somewhere else on calling API procedures but couldn't get it to work.


    I had been searching for ages for something like this and am very grateful for it.


    I was trying to create something in Excel that does a screen scrape of a payments system developed in-house, but one of the pages that contained the info I needed called for a right mouse click with no shortcut-key.  Another thing required a mouse-click into a field that had neither an accelerator nor was it a tab-stop.  So emulating a mouse move and click was the only thing I could do.


    Oh the possibilities!  


  8. 24 Jan 2003 at 16:46

    I wan to to do this but with a captionless button on crystal reports preview windows to force click event search button

  9. 01 Jan 1999 at 00:00

    This thread is for discussions of Simulating User Actions.

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