Sending tricky keypresses to webmate.io

webmate-keypresses.js

// Some keypresses are hard to send to VMs running in webmate.io as they are intercepted
// by the web browser. In those cases you can manually send them. Open the JavaScript console
// and paste one of these snippets.
// Notes:
//  - There's a handy sheet of the key codes here http://www.cambiaresearch.com/articles/15/javascript-key-codes.
//  - For buttons like Control or Alt you need to use "keydown", but for other keys "keypress".
//  - Don't forget to also send a "keyup", otherwise the key will be held down forever!

// Control f
$("#console").wmks("sendKeyCode", 17, "keydown");
$("#console").wmks("sendKeyCode", 70, "keypress");
$("#console").wmks("sendKeyCode", 70, "keyup");
$("#console").wmks("sendKeyCode", 17, "keyup");

// Apple f
$("#console").wmks("sendKeyCode", 91, "keydown");
$("#console").wmks("sendKeyCode", 70, "keypress");
$("#console").wmks("sendKeyCode", 70, "keyup");
$("#console").wmks("sendKeyCode", 91, "keyup");

webmate-sendstring.js

// FIXME - Needs work, very rough!
function sendString(s)
{
  var needShift = "!\"$%^&*()_+}~{@:?<>#ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ";

  $("#console").wmks("sendKeyCode", 16, "keyup");

  for (let c of s)
  {
    let shift = needShift.indexOf(c) > -1;

    if (shift)
      $("#console").wmks("sendKeyCode", 16, "keydown");

    $("#console").wmks("sendKeyCode", c.charCodeAt(), "keypress");

    if (shift)
      $("#console").wmks("sendKeyCode", 16, "keyup");
  }
}

sendString("Hello world!! 123");

The Eyeo Helpers extension now makes this easier.