Does not recognise modifier keys

[fromheten]

The functions get-key and get-key-blocking are giving you all keys pressed. But they don't seem to recognise the Control, Alt & super (and on Mac Command) keys.

For instance, get-key returns 'å' when I hit Alt-a on my mac keyboard. Ctrl and any character just returns the character. It would be nice to let the program get {:mod :ctrl :key "a"} or something like that.

[heyestom]

+1 This would be very useful. There is #18 which provides behaviour similar to what is being asked for. :)

[MultiMUD]

v0.10.0 will include this:

(require '[lanterna.terminal :as t] 
               '[lanterna.api :as api])
(let [term (-> (t/get-terminal :swing) api/start) 
        stroke (api/get-stroke term)] 
  (api/stop term) 
  stroke)
;; hitting alt-a (on BSD) => {:key \a, :ctrl false, :alt true, :shift false}

[fromheten]

@MultiMUD Will the get-key function then sometimes return a string and sometimes a map?

If you want to keep backwards compatibility (always a good idea, and a proud tradition in Clojure-land), a simple way could be to just add functions get-key-with-modifier & get-key-with-modifier-blocking which always return a map like {:key \a, :ctrl false, :alt true, :shift false}.

Please keep my suggestion in mind, and thanks for the nice library!

[MultiMUD]

@fromheten backwards compatibility was a requirement when handing over the repository & project from @sjl. To achieve this, there will be a split in API between 0.9.7 (current and last release by @sjl) and 0.10.0: The terminal and screen API will remain unchanged, maybe even a bit extended, with the mindset that this is the "low level", stable API. On top of this there will be a (protocol driven) generic API for all things drawing in lanterna3, terminals, screens and textgraphics. This allows experimentation for a more clojurey API on a higher layer, while current code will remain to function as expected with an updated clojure-lanterna. The only thing that changes from the low-level API is the return value (for any side-effecting fn this will return the context object (the first argument to the functions, a terminal or screen) as to permit (->) chaining of the fns. Check out the lanterna3 branch for a mid-development state snapshot.

So to directly answer your question: get-key returns a keycode constant now, and it will continue doing so. To get the map version, use get-stroke (a new fn) from either the low-level, or the API namespace.

[fromheten]

@MultiMUD all right, if I understand you correctly it will be backwards compatible. Cheers

[MultiMUD]

Indeed. I'd consider it a bug if it isn't (save for the one-offs that make programming and design so beautiful :) )