When a blank window title is specified, the SendKeys interacts with the current active window and can send the backtick keystroke. This small application is able to send keystrokes to any application running on Windows, found by window title.
Even better, I could unleash my google-fu and find a ready-made one, such as Independent SendKeys. If I can’t type the backtick directly, I can always build a small application that types that key for me. OMG! 5 keys instead of 1! No way: we need to find a workaround! This way, backtick becomes NumLock+ALT+Numpad9+Numpad6+NumLock. This method is painful enough itself, but quickly becomes a nightmare when working on a laptop, where probably there’s no hardware numeric pad. The only way to type a key not present in your keyboard layout is using the numeric pad with the ALT key, so that, for instance, backtick becomes ALT+Numpad9+Numpad6. Now, with PowerShell, serious issues arise for those that want to wrap their code on multiple lines and reach for the backtick key, staring hopelessly at an Italian keyboard. The first did not let them type any numbers with the right numeric pad, while the second returned the chars that would appear if Shift was pressed as well.You may be surprised to know that not all keyboard layouts include the backtick key, and if you happen to live in a country with such a layout and want to do some PowerShell coding, you’re in big trouble.įor many years all major programming languages took this layout mismatch into consideration and avoided the use of US-only keys in the language definition. It did turn out usually that their numlock key was not active, or that the capslock key was active.
I remember several calls back then when I worked for a huge financial corporation where users told me that our website was broken because they could not enter numbers in certain forms on the website. If the numlock key needs to be enabled all the time, for instance because your job is to type numbers into spreadsheets all day, then you may like the idea of having a Num Lock indicator displayed to you at all times.
While that is not a big deal for me, as I only have to press the corresponding key once again if it is activated or deactivated, it may be an issue for others. The latest keyboard that I bough, a Logitech keyboard, did not come with those three lights on the top right that would show if the Numlock, Capslock or Scrolllock keys are toggled on or off.
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