Livecode - How to use keyDown? - livecode

Question

I've been searching for a long time now and I wanted to know,
How can I code that things will happens when I press on a specific key, (e.g. W).
I found many threads that help in this section with general keys like the delete key or the spacebar and some keyDown theKey, but how do I define "theKey"?
Please help,
FESFEW

Answer 1

For the alphanumeric keys you can use as follows:
on keyDown thekey
switch thekey
case "w"
answer "w key pressed"
break
default
pass keyDown
end switch
end keyDown
KeyDown is an event that will be generated each time the user presses a keyboard symbol (not the function keys), the thekey parameter will contain the symbol of the pressed key.
On the other hand, if you want to differentiate capital letters you must set the CaseSensitive property to TRUE
set the caseSensitive to true
The rawKeyDown property works similarly, but instead of coming in the parameter, the symbol of the pressed key what you will get will be the code of the pressed key including the function keys like shift, F# etc.
on rawKeyDown theKeyCode
switch theKeyCode
case 32
answer "SPACE KEY"
break
case 119
answer "w key pressed"
break
default
pass rawKeyDown
end switch
end rawKeyDown
Constants will be very useful to help make your code more readable, adding constants to previous code will look like this (note that the uppercase keys have codes other than the lowercase ):
constant kSpaceKey = 32
constant kwKey = 119
constant kWUpperKey = 87
on rawKeyDown theKeyCode
switch theKeyCode
case kSpaceKey
answer "SPACE KEY"
break
case kwKey
answer "w key pressed"
break
case kwKey
answer "w key pressed"
break
case kWUpperKey
answer "upper W key pressed"
break
default
pass rawKeyDown
end switch
end rawKeyDown
You can also use this script in the card script to show the code of the key you press:
on rawKeyDown theKeyCode
put theKeyCode
end rawKeyDown
Always remember to pass rawKeyDown, rawKeyUp,KeyDown and KeyUp events if you
want to allow them to continue normal message flow