Method and apparatus for using translated and raw guest keyboard input

Abstract

Host translation of guest keyboard events is blocked to effectively isolate a guest keyboard from a host keyboard during applications sharing. A guest keyboard driver translates guest keyboard events which are transmitted to a host for use in shared applications. A patch instruction is written over a host keyboard event module which causes a jump to a patch subroutine when an attempt is made to deposit host keyboard events in the storage queue. Host keyboard events are marked by the patch subroutine and the marked host events are deposited in a shadow queue which is disposed in parallel with the host storage queue. Translated guest events also are deposited in the shadow queue. Raw host and guest keyboard events are stored in the host storage queue. When a shared application requires data from the host storage queue, a call for a translation of the outgoing data is made. In the event that the data is guest data, a second patch instruction on the module supervising the translation call causes a jump to a second patch subroutine, which bypasses the translation call and causes entry of the pretranslated guest event from the shadow queue into the shared application. If the outgoing event is a host event, the second patch instruction jumps to the second patch subroutine, which writes the translation instructions over the second patch so that the translating module can execute the translation. The translated host event then can be entered into the shared application. The second patch instruction is rewritten over the module supervising the translation.