====== 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

<code>
  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
</code>

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