All Databases Inside Mac - Basic Toolbox

Keyboard Events

For keyDown, autoKey, and keyUp events, the layout of theEvent. message is:

Events.h defines the following constants that apply to the message field for

these events:

keyCodeMask (0x0000FF00) mask to extract keyboard scan code
charCodeMask (0x000000FF) mask to extract ASCII character code
abdAddrMask (0x00FF00000) mask to extract adb address code
osEvtMessageMask (0xFF000000) mask to extract OS event message code

The keyboard address field shows which keyboard in a multiple keyboard

configuration is presenting the event.

See Keyboard Layout for information about key codes.

Typical handling of keyDown events includes code such as this:

theChar =  theEvent->message & charCodeMask;
theKey = ( theEvent->message & keyCodeMask) >> 8;

if ( theEvent->modifiers & cmdKey) // ... was pressed ... //

In handling both keystrokes and mousedowns, you may wish to test the state

of the modifier keys (, option, control, or shift). Modifier keys are not

reported as keystrokes, but the modifiers field of every EventRecord

( including null events) contains the current status:

Note: keyUp events are normally masked by the Event Manager and never

make it into the event queue. See SetEventMask.

The standard System automatically captures and processes two

Command-Shift-number key combinations. The combinations are:

Command-Shift-1 Eject internal disk

Command-Shift-2 Eject external disk

Combinations for 3 to 9 are also captured by GetNextEvent or

WaitNextEvent but are processed by 'FKEY' resources. You can define

actions for Command-Shift-number combinations for numbers 5 to 9 by

defining your own 'FKEY' resource. The routine should have no parameters and

the ID of the resource has to correspond to the selected 'FKEY'. For example, to

define an action for Command-Shift-8, you would create an 'FKEY' resource

with ID 8.

The following 2 Command-Shift-number key combinations are implemented

with 'FKEY' resources in the standard System file:

Command-Shift-3 Save current screen as a MacPaint file,

with name Screen #

Command-Shift-4 Print the active window to an

ImageWriter

(with Caps Lock enabled) Print the entire screen to an ImageWriter

Referenced by (2):