Version 3 Technical Highlights - KBStatus

Published By	Date	Version	Knowledge Level	Keywords
Sprezzatura Ltd	01 OCT 1992	3.0+	EXPERT	KBSTATUS

A function which returns an integer which indicates which special keyboard keys are pressed down at the time that the routine is called. To find out whether a particular key is active it is necessary to BITAND the result with a specific integer as shown in the following table. If the BITAND returns false then the key is not pressed.

1	The Right Shift key
2	The Left Shift Key
3	Left/Right Shift
4	The Ctrl Key
8	The Alt Key
16	The Scroll Lock Key
32	The Num Lock Key
64	The Caps Lock Key
128	Insert Key

Thus to check whether the user was pressing Right-Shifted-Alt the following code segment would suffice

  Declare Function KbStatus
  Loop
    Input X,-1
  Until X = \1B\
    If BitAnd(KbStatus(),1) Then
     If BitAnd(KbStatus(),8) Then
      Print Char(7) :
     End
    End
  Repeat

(Volume 4, Issue 5, Pages 11,12)