related key words - NSEvent, NSKeyDown, KeyMap, NSResponder, sendEvent

Here’s a simple way to get the current keyDown characters outside of the event stream.

static char XFKeyMap[] = {0x00, 0x78, 0x7a, 0x67, 0x68, 0x66, 0x64, 0x73, 0x61, 0x72, 0x65, 0x77, 0x71, 0x62, 0x00, 0x76, 0x63, 0x35, 0x36, 0x34, 0x33, 0x32, 0x31, 0x74, 0x79, 0x6f, 0x5d, 0x30, 0x38, 0x2d, 0x37, 0x39, 0x3d, 0x27, 0x6a, 0x6c, 0x00, 0x70, 0x69, 0x5b, 0x75, 0x2e, 0x6d, 0x6e, 0x2f, 0x2c, 0x5c, 0x3b, 0x6b, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x60, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x0b, 0x06, 0x0a, 0x09, 0x08, 0x0f, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x07, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x04, 0x00};

• (NSString *)currentKeyDownCharacters {

  unsigned char bytes[16]; GetKeys((void *)bytes); int bitNumber = 0, i; NSMutableString *characters = [NSMutableString stringWithCapacity:128]; for (i = 0; i < 16; i++) { int mask = 0x80; while (mask) { bitNumber++; if (mask & bytes[i]) { char c = XFKeyMap[bitNumber]; if (c) [characters appendFormat:@”%c”, c]; } mask = mask » 1; } } return characters;

}

– zootbobbalu

---

That code isn’t very robust, especially when using non-English keyboard layouts. I’ve created an NSApplication category that handles (AFAIK) all keyboard layouts, and have posted it at http://www.ghosttiger.com/?p=136 - JonathanGrynspan