We Keep Coding

Interact with website without sending keystrokes to window (Python, Windows)?

Is it possible to interact with a webpage loaded into a web browser (such as Chrome) without the window being active and without sending keystrokes to it? For example, suppose I have SoundCloud loaded in chrome and the chrome window minimized, but I want to create a hotkey on my computer (such as through Autohotkey) which acts as a play/pause button for the track. Would it be possible to have a Python script somehow interact with the browser to obtain that functionality without having to send it a keystroke?
The reason I'm trying to avoid having to send keystrokes is because it would require the Window to become briefly maximized and active. I can already do this in autohotkey. For example, I have an ahk script that iterates over all the windows, finds one with Soundcloud in the title, maximizes the window if it is minimized, sends the spacebar keystroke (which acts as play/pause on Soundcloud), and then minimizes the Window again if it was minimized to begin with.
This has the undesirable effect of making the Window flash briefly if it was minimized, or if virtual desktops are used, all the Windows flash if the Chrome window with Soundcloud is located on another virtual desktop other than the active one.
Ideally I could just write some program that runs silently in the background to send some kind of the request to the site that has the same effect as pressing the play/pause button without having to use the janky keystroke method I suggested above. But I am not sure if this is possible. What is actually happening when I click the play/pause button on Soundcloud, and is there some way write a program to get Chrome to do that without using keystrokes?
Any suggestions? I would prefer to do this without any browser plugins if possible.

How to set tkinter window focus out?

I am trying to do make a virtual keyboard using tkinter. Is there any method that allow tkinter window focus out? For example in java we can have setFocusableWindowState(false)
Thank you very much for your help.

I believe you can accomplish what you want with tkinter, but it's not about not getting focus. I don't think, that other GUI tools will make it any easier.
It's part of operation system, or more precisely window manager to give focus to some window, when it is clicked. So, in case of virtual keyboard:
User has focus in text editor (for example).
User presses a button on your virtual keyboard.
OS/Window manager gives focus to your keyboard window and sends mouse click event to the GUI library (tkinter).
Here you need to identify where was the focus before your window got it, i.e. get the text editor window handler somehow.
Send the button press event to that window and return focus.
Repeat.
You'll use tkinter to draw the keyboard window and handle mouse clicks/touches on virtual keyboard keys. But you'll need to work with OS/Window manager to identify other windows by handlers and send keypress events to them. May be you will be able to prevent focus switch by working with OS/Window manager, but it's not tkinter or other GUI library functionality.

Tkinter activate window on Windows XP

I have a small GUI application that listens for network messages so a user can update some info and accept it. This is in a production factory environment and used for interacting with a specific piece of physical hardware (over serial in some cases). The workflow looks like this:
User is interacting with another program (5250 Green Screen)
They enter a certain keybinding that sends a UDP message to a Tkinter GUI
The Tkinter GUI does a deiconify()
User edits data, accepts (Enter) and it does an iconify()
My issue is that on windows XP, the GUI does not become active when I do the deiconify and conversely does not fall back to the prior window on iconify. I have tried some things I found in other questions such as:
Setting the Tk GUI as top.. self.wm_attributes("-topmost", 1)
Trying to set/force focus... self.focus_set() and self.focus_force()
Although the window is visible with the first, I can not seem to get it to be the active window so that the user can type in it without "clicking" on it to activate. The same is true for releasing the "focus" so that the active window becomes the one they were previously on (5250).
It seems like an issue that others also have had but I have not been able to find anything that works. Is there a programmatic way to get the window activated and release it when done?

Unfortunately, after a week there have been no answers and I was not able to find a direct way to do this with Tkinter. I did find a way to solve the problem though and it appears to work consistently. Here are the steps I took to make the screens activate:
Install pywin32.
Create a function that activates the tk app.
Create a function that activates the 5250.
Then each time I do a iconify/deiconify I also run the function to activate the appropriate screen. The code that activates the tk window looks like this:
def activate_self(self):
""" Activate this window. """
shell = win32com.client.Dispatch('WScript.Shell')
shell.AppActivate(str(self.title))
shell = None
The code that activates the caller is a little ugly since it has to guess the title but is the same basic concept.

Send Key Event to a Child Window

I'm developing an application in python which sends keyboard events to another external application. I use the pywin32 package to set the external application and send the desired key:
import win32com.client as w32
shell = w32.Dispatch("WScript.Shell")
shell.AppActivate(desired_application)
shell.SendKeys("{ENTER}")
The external application I'm using has a virtual keyboard and a text area which receives the events of the keyboard. I want to send the key event (in this case, an 'ENTER') to the keyboard area (because the keyboard is making a scan through the letters and will select the desired letter with an Enter). However, my application is sending the key events to the text area instead of the keyboard.
I tried to get the handle of the window I want with FindWindow and EnumChildWindow from win32gui... So, is there a way to send the keys to the specific child window of the external application?

I manage to choose the specific handle with EnumChildWindow (to enumerate all the handles of the application) and send the message with PostMessage.
import win32api
win32api.PostMessage(handler, win32con.WM_KEYDOWN, win32con.VK_RETURN, 0)

Key commands in Tkinter

I made a GUI with Tkinter, now how do I make it so when a key command will execute a command even if the Tkinter window is not in focus? Basically I want it so everything is bound to that key command.
Example:
Say I was browsing the internet and the focus was on my browser, I then type Ctrl + U. An event would then run on my program.

Tkinter, on its own, cannot grab keystrokes that (from the OS's/WM's viewpoint) were directed to other, unrelated windows -- you'll need to instruct your window manager, desktop manager, or "operating system", to direct certain keystrokes differently than it usually does. So, what platform do you need to support for this functionality? Each platform has different ways to perform this kind of functionality, of course.