Hot keys

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letterboy1
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Dec 04, 2002 5:00 am
Location: Columbus, GA - USA

Hot keys

Post by letterboy1 »

I did some preliminary searching to see if this topic has been covered. If it has, my apologies.

I was wondering if I'm doing something wrong when attempting to assign key combinations to the hot keys for things like Pause, Center, etc . . . It seems to only accept single keystrokes as hot keys for these commands. If combinations are not available for these particular hot keys, then I would like to request this as a feature. If this feature is already available, I'm probably doing it wrong to begin with; so pretend I didn't make this request.
Jim
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Location: Corvallis, Oregon
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Re: Hot keys

Post by Jim »

Hello:

No, you aren't doing anything wrong. The HotKeys that we have are very advanced, they take control of any key and "trap" it so that other programs won't see the key anymore. This allows you to map special trackIR functions to keys, like clicking and centering with just one key. So, it only traps the first key you hit because that first key is now designated the HotKey, it doesn't work with combinations.

Hope that makes sense.
razalasm
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Dec 25, 2002 5:00 am

Re: Hot keys

Post by razalasm »

Jim,
I wish to add my vote for this feature, and to point out that it can be done with a little more work on your part. Obviously a keyboard driver needs to keep track of the state of the "shift-like" keys (shift, alt, ctrl ...). To add this feature you will need to as well ... that is you need to add the ability to treat certain keys as "shift-like" modifiers instead of keys that send their own code. When you detect one of these keys pressed you keep an internal flag that records it on ... when you detect its release you clear the flag. Also you'll need to pass the event to the standard key handler. Not rocket science.
Jim
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Location: Corvallis, Oregon
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Re: Hot keys

Post by Jim »

Mark:

I agree that it isn't rocket science, it is a question of desired functionality. How would the software know that you wanted to use the Shift key as a modifier and not as a stand alone HotKey? You could set another flag for that option as well, but then things are getting complex in the software layout. Also, most all our users define keys that are not used all the time, like one of the dual Shift keys, or Ctrl. These are easy keys to hit for clicking, it is more difficult to hit a mulitkey combination for something like clicking or just centering. Also, all Hotkeys can be turned off one by one, so you only need to define keys that you use. I can see the logic in us allowing for the keys to be "passed through" so other programs can also see them for key combinations, and I will add that to the list for future upgrades. I am open to a dialog on this, but I need to understand the reason why this would be a benefit.

[ December 27, 2002, 02:08 PM: Message edited by: Jim Richardson ]
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