Shortcut key (background) program for typing out entire words/sentences. How to start?

Question

I want to make a shortcut program that waits for a specified keyboard key or combination while I'm busy in another program. When I type the phrase or keyboard combination my program should respond with a sentence typed out like I typed it all out myself. So for example if I type 'xso' it will type out 'Stack Overflow' entirely.

I am not sure where to start because I haven't made anything like this before. I have googled a lot to see where to begin but I got unrelated results because the keywords are so generic. I have moderate C# experience and do all my programming in VS. Can anyone get me up and running? Just a few hints where to look and what is important.

Answer 1

Assuming I understand what you want, you need to do the following:

1. Hook the global keyboard shortcuts you want
2. Use SendKeys to type whatever you want into the currently active application

I actually wrote an open source C# application that uses both, you can check it out at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/clipcycler/