How to simulate keyboard ESC command using Python builtin modules?

Question

For my addon I need a function that simulates just a single ESC button event from the keyboard, using Python. I've tried many things and this seems to be the only way left to abort

bpy.ops.render.render('INVOKE_DEFAULT')

operator without killing the whole Blender.

I've found this Ctypes method. This is builtin module unlike win32api or Pynput, so it can be imported without install right from inside the Blender. It seems to be exactly what I need. But importing the whole module and writing all those classes is obviously way too much for just a single ESC keyboard command, and unfortunately my current programming skills don't allow me to get through the whole module to find what I need. Please, can anyone help me with this?

Answer 1

Here is the solution for Windows I was looking for:

import ctypes

VK_ESCAPE = 0x1B
ctypes.windll.user32.keybd_event(VK_ESCAPE)

Beeing written as a function and appended to bpy.app.handlers.render_pre it simulates pressing ESC on the keyboard and aborts the render.

In my addon I used another solution: it turned out to be possible to replace original Blender main top Render menu with custom one which buttons execute addon's operators instead of original Blender's. It was done by recreating inside the script and re-registering original class TOPBAR_MT_render(bpy.types.Menu) which can be found in your Blender current version folder -> scripts -> startup -> bl_ui -> space_topbar.py

Also I replaced operators for original keymap shortcut settings by editing bpy.context.window_manager.keyconfigs.active.keymaps['Screen'].keymap_items, so in the end user uses the same buttons and shortcuts he used to, but they execute addon's operators instead of original ones, and this is suitable for every system, not only for Windows.