How to get mouse up/down/moved and key press events in Python

Question

I've been working for a while on a Python 2.7 project written for Linux to add Windows support to it. I'm trying to figure out how to get the event for keyboard press and the mouse moving, being pressed, or being released. I installed the win32api and pyHook but I just can't figure how to get it right. Note that I want it to get the event no matter where it is, not just when its pressed in the command prompt for example. Here is how you would do it in linux:

def handle_event(self):
 """ This function is called when a xlib event is fired """
 data = reply.data
 while len(data):
 event, data = rq.EventField(None).parse_binary_value(data, self._display.display, None, None)
 if event.type == X.MotionNotify:
 if self._mouse_last_x != None:
 mouse_distance=math.sqrt((event.root_x-self._mouse_last_x)**2+(event.root_y-self._mouse_last_y)**2)
 self.send_event(('mouse_moved',mouse_distance))
 self._mouse_last_x,self._mouse_last_y = event.root_x,event.root_y
 if event.type == X.ButtonPress:
 print event.sequence_number,event._data,event._fields
 self.send_event(('button_down',event._data['detail']))
 elif event.type == X.ButtonRelease:
 print event.sequence_number,event._data,event._fields
 self.send_event(('button_up',event._data['detail']))
 elif event.type == X.KeyPress and event.sequence_number == 0:
 key = event.detail
 self.send_event(('keys_pressed',key,1))
def run(self):
 self.disable_keyboard_interrupt()
 root = self._display.screen().root
 ctx = self._display.record_create_context(
 0,
 [record.AllClients],
 [{
 'core_requests': (0, 0),
 'core_replies': (0, 0),
 'ext_requests': (0, 0, 0, 0),
 'ext_replies': (0, 0, 0, 0),
 'delivered_events': (0, 0),
 'device_events': (X.KeyReleaseMask, X.PointerMotionMask),
 'errors': (0, 0),
 'client_started': False,
 'client_died': False,
 }])
 self._display.record_enable_context(ctx, self.handle_event)

I just can't seem to figure out how to get it like this for Windows with any library.

Answer 1

For detecting the left and right mouse buttons being pressed or released, please check my solution using just win32api here: Python mouse click detection just with win32api

• ρяσѕρєя K: Instead of posting links as answer add some text to explanation how this answer help to OP in fixing current issue.Thanks
• Markacho: My response guided the OP to use win32api, and referenced an applicable answer that was already provided elsewhere in StackOverflow. That answer provides the needed detail and working code, without duplication of effort in this thread.

Answer 2

There is Win32 API function SetWindowsHookEx.

Example on Python: Applying low-level keyboard hooks with Python and SetWindowsHookExA

pyHook is also good package for 32-bit Python (it's a bit outdated and you need some efforts to re-build it for x64 using MinGW). Example: Detecting Mouse clicks in windows using python