Trap keyboard and mouse activity

[Scott Kurimski]

I would like to implement an auto-logoff routine based on inactivity wihtin my app.

What is the "cleanest" way to trap all keyboard and mouse activity?

[Stan Mathews]

Re: Trap keyboard and mouse activity

You don't need to worry about mouse clicks and keyboard activity. You do need to check for open forms in change/enter mode.

Check this. There are on the message board too.

[Scott Kurimski]

Re: Trap keyboard and mouse activity

Stan,

I have seen that link before and agree that is a good idea for a mass "exit" although it is not what I am looking for.

In my case we have a number of "shared" computers. Indivudals walk up to the PC, logon and do their thing. When they are done they are to logoff so other individuals cannot walk up behind them and perform tasks under their account. The often forget to logoff and others play "tricks" on them when they see they are logged off.

My preferance is to monitor the individual workstation for keyboard and mouse activity and if there is no keyboard or mouse activity for a period of time (i.e. 10min) autolog them off.

At this point I am really looking for the best way to capture the mouse activity.

Any ideas?

[DickJames]

Re: Trap keyboard and mouse activity

We did this using the onTimer event on a form. We set the timer to fire once every two minutes. When the timer fires, it checks the difference between a variable called varLastTimeTouched and the current time. If the interval exceeds 9 minutes, the form closes. The varLastTimeTouched is updated to the current time every time an onArrive event fires on any object on the form. The form can thus be idle for no more than 11 minutes. Make your intervals shorter or longer as you wish.

-- Dick James

[martinwcole]

Re: Trap keyboard and mouse activity

Scott, I use the onkey event for forms to reset the lastuse variable

I'm not clear as to whether you want to shut down the Alpha app, or just auto logoff the current user, or just close a form.

as far as I know you cannot trap mouse events

[MikeC]

Re: Trap keyboard and mouse activity

If mouse movements are what you want, then the User Defined Control has some mouse events.....have the UDC cover the entire form maybe...

Also an indication of user mouse activity would be if an object has gained/lost focus--OnArrive, OnDepart should do it to set a logical to see if this has happened within whatever the timer is set for ....

[martinwcole]

Re: Trap keyboard and mouse activity

good idea on the onarrive
but for a udc you would have to put one on every form
so far, if I use the onkey and onfetch events to reset the variable, it has worked

I have a script where I can open every form, and add code for all desired events - like the onkey, button onpush, etc. - and then save the form - all with a single xbasic script - this is handy when your app has a lot of layouts.

I think I will look at adding the onarrive event for all buttons - the fields would take care of themselves with the onkey as they type

[Allen Klimeck]

Re: Trap keyboard and mouse activity

I too use the onkey to reset the variable you don't need to trap mouse events only check to see if there is mouse movement.
Marcel Kollenaar posted to the code forum how to do it:

http://msgboard.alphasoftware.com/al...ad.php?t=65462

Allen

[Scott Kurimski]

Re: Trap keyboard and mouse activity

Martin - The goal is to.....after a specificied period of inactivity, close all forms and run the UDF that logs the employee off (Same as pressing the logoff button)

Allen - I had also found Marcels post and like that method. Using an OnArrive would require the user to actually focus a field on the form and my preferance would be to have it "capture" any mouse or keyboard "movements" just like a screen saver does when you move the mouse. Either way would actually work, just a preference at this point.

To All - What is the easiest way to capture any keyboard "movement", rahter than checking for each key individually can I just check for a_user.key.event = "Down" one time?

[martinwcole]

Re: Trap keyboard and mouse activity

at the onkey event of all forms, put
your variable name=toseconds(time())
this presumes it is a numeric variable, of course

everytime they use any key on the keyboard will reset the variable

[Allen Klimeck]

Re: Trap keyboard and mouse activity

You don't need to trap any keys the onkey event fires every time a key is pressed just update your variable.

Allen