Keyboard Information

This chapter covers everything you need to know about getting keyboard events, processing keyboard events, and learning about and changing the configuration of the user's keyboard.

The "Definitions" section provides definitions of some keyboard-related terminology, and describes some basic concepts, including the different kinds of keys, an overview of keyboard mapping, and modifier keys.

"Modifier Keys" discusses modifier keys in more detail.

"More on Keyboard Mapping" discusses keyboard mapping in more detail.

"Character Constants" covers the constants used to idenfity special characters and other special keys, such as the function keys.

"The Journey of a Keystroke" covers the process by which a keystroke makes its way from the keyboard to an application in BeOS.

The "Keyboard Messages" section lists the keyboard messages that get generated when the user presses or releases a key.

The "Key Codes" section provides information about the key codes used to represent each key on the keyboard, and discusses the functions that allow you to read the keyboard state, as well as setting and changing the mapping between key codes and characters.

The "Key States" section discusses the ability to determine at any time which keys are down and which are not, using a bit-array of key states.

The "Keyboard Functions" section lists all keyboard-related functions, and includes specifics on how to read and understand the keymap-related structures.