Processing 1.0 - Processing Discourse - Input from keyboard of special characters

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Index › Programming Questions & Help › Syntax Questions › Input from keyboard of special characters

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Input from keyboard of special characters (Read 1914 times)

gabon

Input from keyboard of special characters
Aug 18^th, 2005, 9:57am

I'm wondering how to identify the input of characters that required particular combinations to be typed, like "{","}","[" and "]" that in my keyboard has to be insert using CTRL + key or CTRL + SHIFT + key. It seems that the "key" in the code is not found and if I print it, it is "?". Is there any limitation on the characters I can type from the keyboard?

thx, chr

{Christian Giordano's site and blog}

mark hill Senior Member Offline Posts: 316	Re: Input from keyboard of special characters Reply #1 - Aug 18^th, 2005, 10:07am I don't know if it works but have you tried the unicode character equivalent. i.e fullstop (or period) = \u002e * Update * This works for me: Code: if(key == '\u002e') { // stuff to do. }

gabon Full Member Offline Posts: 121	Re: Input from keyboard of special characters Reply #2 - Aug 18^th, 2005, 1:46pm it seems the problem is with my italian keyboard that to type some not very common characters has to make those odd combos. On the english keyboard for almost all the characters there is not so much problem. I'll test later the unicode option but I think the problem is of a different nature. Thanks, chr
	{Christian Giordano's site and blog}

fry

Re: Input from keyboard of special characters
Reply #3 - Aug 18^th, 2005, 4:53pm

nah, that sort of thing should work just fine. java/p5 are built to deal with international characters/keyboards properly.

the ? is that the key is "coded" key:
http://processing.org/reference/keyCode.html
and the value will be in keyCode. there are constants for many of the keys in processing, the rest can be found in the full java documentation about how KeyEvent works:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/awt/event/KeyEvent.html

see also the developer reference for keyPressed()
http://dev.processing.org/reference/core/javadoc/processing/core/PApplet.html#keyPressed()
which explains more of how this works in processing.

gabon

Re: Input from keyboard of special characters
Reply #4 - Aug 19^th, 2005, 12:06am

well, if I use this simple code:
Code:

void keyPressed()
{
  if(key == CODED){
    println(keyEvent);

And I type Alt GR + key ("[" for the italian keyboard) I get:

java.awt.event.KeyEvent[KEY_PRESSED,keyCode=18,keyText=Alt,keyChar=Undefined keyChar,modifiers=Ctrl+Alt,extModifiers=Ctrl+Alt,keyLocation=KEY_LOCATION_RIGHT]
on panel0

So it doesn't seem so helpful Sad

Am I missing something?

Thanks, chr

{Christian Giordano's site and blog}

fry YaBB Moderator Offline Posts: 2623 mass, usa	Re: Input from keyboard of special characters Reply #5 - Aug 19^th, 2005, 6:38am what character should that keypress make? is there a VK_XXXXX constant in the KeyEvent reference for the character that it should produce? i.e. if it were just a left bracket, then you'd want something like: if ((key == CODED) && (keyCode == KeyEvent.VK_OPEN_BRACKET))

gabon

Re: Input from keyboard of special characters
Reply #6 - Aug 19^th, 2005, 9:46am

thanks fry for the patience but with this code:

Code:

   if (key == CODED){
     println(KeyEvent.getKeyText(keyCode));
     if(keyCode == KeyEvent.VK_CLOSE_BRACKET){
	 println("CLOSE BRACKET");
     }
   }

pressing some combo keys I got just:

Ctrl
Alt

with others:

Ctrl
Alt
Unknown keyCode: 0x0

And of course there is no way to type the closing brackets and I never get in that if.

Any other ideas?

Thanks a lot man, chr

{Christian Giordano's site and blog}

fry YaBB Moderator Offline Posts: 2623 mass, usa	Re: Input from keyboard of special characters Reply #7 - Aug 19^th, 2005, 4:18pm did you read the link from the developer reference? a keyPressed() will be called when alt or ctrl is hit, followed by another when you hit any other keys as part of a ctrl- or alt- combo. you might want to be using keyTyped(), for instance, which should only fire with the "final" key stroke.

gabon

Re: Input from keyboard of special characters
Reply #8 - Aug 19^th, 2005, 4:46pm

I looked the javadoc but also for your anchor I didn't get to the events :S. Actually I had to read better http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/awt/event/KeyEvent.html#KEY_TYPED (what a stupid man I am)
Anyway, u r right, at the end what I needed is just to get the typed chars and keyTyped seems to work perfectly!

And why inside this last event the key is always not CODED?

Many thanks, chr

{Christian Giordano's site and blog}

fry YaBB Moderator Offline Posts: 2623 mass, usa	Re: Input from keyboard of special characters Reply #9 - Aug 19^th, 2005, 5:16pm you have to copy and paste the url from my post, because yabb doesn't handle the parens () at the end of the url properly. or go to that page and scroll down to the key event ref.

gabon Full Member Offline Posts: 121	Re: Input from keyboard of special characters Reply #10 - Aug 19^th, 2005, 5:50pm no, it worked. It is that it brought me to the right method but I had to find the detail at the bottom of the page (another anchor for the detail version in the javadoc would have helped ) thx, chr
	{Christian Giordano's site and blog}

fry YaBB Moderator Offline Posts: 2623 mass, usa	Re: Input from keyboard of special characters Reply #11 - Aug 19^th, 2005, 6:15pm if you copy and paste it properly, it is the detailed explanation in the javadoc.

gabon Full Member Offline Posts: 121	Re: Input from keyboard of special characters Reply #12 - Aug 19^th, 2005, 7:46pm finally I got what you meant I didn't expected the "()" as part of the anchor thx, chr
	{Christian Giordano's site and blog}

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