Manually route a global keyboard shortcut to a specific application on Windows7?

Question

I have an application (last.fm 1.5.4) that doesn't use global keyboard shortcuts, i.e. its shortcuts only work when the application has focus.

Is there a way of manually defining a global shortcut in windows7 that will be routed to the application, even when it doesn't have focus?

Answer 1

Only to remark that AutoHotkey, suggested by Botond Balázs, started as a fork of AutoIt.

AutoIt has continued to evolve even more, and may be more pleasurable for writing scripts.

Answer 2

If we're all going the autohotkey route, let's give some scripting help!

This script was reccomended by Lifehacker, and looks pretty good to me. Never used last.fm, so that's all I've got :)

Looks like it's a little complex, but if you simply paste that script into the top of a .ahk file (basically a text file with the extension .ahk), then you can use things like:

#p::ControlLastFM("Toggle")

to play/pause on Winkey (# is the winkey modifier) and P (p is p, any key will do :))

Answer 3

You can use AutoHotKey to define a global shortcut, and bind it to a script that sends key presses to the window.