KeyboardEvent key values differ between Win and Mac

Rhino Developer
, ,
1

As per the title, running this simple script on Win and Mac results in different values for the same key (example: “S“ is 83 on Win and 1 on Mac). Is this expected? It would be weird if so, given that KeyboardEvent is a RhinoApp (and not a System) event, so it would make sense to have consistent codes for the same key in both OS.
If this is the expected behavior for some reason, how can I check that the same key (say “S“) is pressed when running on Win or on Mac? So far, I have used this check:

void OnKeyboardEvent(int key)
{
 switch(key)
     {
         case (int)KeyboardKey.S:
           // dosomethingelse
         break;

         case (int)KeyboardKey.W:
           // dosomethingelse
         break;
     }
}

But it seems like KeyboardKey is mapped only on Win-based values. Running a script with the same check on Mac and pressing “S” won’t trigger the expected case.

KeyboardEvent_test.cs (637 Bytes)

2

Hi @ale2x72,

On Windows, the value of key will be a virtual key code.

I don’t know the details of the Mac implementation. But I’m sure what is returned is not a Windows virtual key code.

What are you doing with the keyboard hook?

– Dale

3

The keyboard hook triggers a specific action (like rotating a selected geometry) in a plugin that, for now, I only tested on Windows; yesterday, I tried it on a Mac and found the problem. But the action per se is not important; let’s say I just want to print the key that was just pressed:

void OnKeyboardEvent(int key)
{
 switch(key)
     {
         case (int)KeyboardKey.S:
           Console.WriteLine("Hey, you pressed S!");
         break;

         case (int)KeyboardKey.W:
           Console.WriteLine("Hey, you pressed W!");
         break;
     }
}

If you try this implementation of OnKeyboardEvent in my previous script and test it on Windows and Mac, the Windows version will spot the W and S keys correctly, while the Mac version won’t.
Since KeyboardKey is an enum of Rhino.UI, I expected it to work in Rhino regardless of the OS Rhino is running on. It is counterintuitive that it doesn’t.
Sure, I can hardcode the key values specifically for Windows and Mac with a preliminary check, but I was hoping for a more elegant solution. Shouldn’t RhinoCommon be OS-independent? (I mean, usable in both OS equally)