Keyboard Watcher actor - can I use the Up and Down arrows keys?

mark_m

Been exploring remote trigger methods for Isadora. Bought cheap bluetooth wireless presenter from Amazon. Blurb said it controlled page up / page down keys. In fact it controls up and down arrow keys. Keyboard Watcher actor doesn't seem to let me use those keys. I know I could use something like Sharpkeys to remap the up and down arrows to page up / page down, but just wondering if there's some behind-the-scenes clever way to get up and down arrows to work with Keyboard Watcher actor.
I thank you and wish you all a happy 12th Night and that tomorrow brings an epiphany.

Mark (t'other one)

Juriaan

Ehhhhh.. I'm quite sure you can, but I can't come up with the necassary key range, nothing in the manual either..

@mark

Any idea about Up, Down, Left and Right ?

Juriaan

Hi there @mark_m,

It seems that the Keyboard Actor accepts the UP, DOWN, LEFT and RIGHT key.

1. Create a new Keyboard Watcher

2. Select the Slider of the Key range and get it all the way down

3. Go one up. If you press the keys on your Keyboard it will Trigger.

4. It will return a key value that is an ASCII value, we can compare that !

Here is the Isadora actor that I made for you :)

Isadora Keyboard - Arrow watcher.izz

mark_m

@juriaan

Ah, very clever! I would not have figured that out myself!! Thank you, and thanks for making the user actor as well!

Cheers

Mark (other)

mark

The thing you have to watch out for is this: if anything is selected in the User Interface -- for example an actor -- then the Keyboard Watcher will probably not get the arrow key. Instead, the actor will move.

If, however, you're in a Control Panel, and you're not in Edit Mode, then it should work.

To make it super clear how to get these keys: click in the 'key range' input and type the following number to get an arrow key:

LeftArrow = 28
RightArrow = 29
UpArrow = 30
DownArrow = 31

then hit return. (You can enter a numeric value in this field, and it will be converted to the ASCII character; try entering 65 for instance.)

Other useful keys might include:

Escape = 27
Enter = 3 (Not the same as return)
Page Up = 11
Page Down = 12
Backspace = 8

Best Wishes,
Mark

Juriaan

Hi there @mark,

Nice ! Didn't know that, perhaps it can be included in the manual ?

- Juriaan