Keyboard

Introduction

The Keyboard class provides functionality for getting input data from the physical keyboard. This class is automatically instantiated by and accessible through the InputManager. The Keyboard class is accessible both on a PC as well as on the Xbox 360.

Detecting Keyboard Activity

There are many ways to get data from the keyboard. The following section of code is a series of if-statements which could be used to detect input from the keyboard. Add the following using statements:

using FlatRedBall.Input;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input; // for the Keys enum

In your CustomActivity method:

void CustomActivity(bool firstTimeCalled)
{
   if(InputManager.Keyboard.KeyPushed(Keys.A))
   {
       // The A key was just pushed - down this frame, up last frame.
   }

   if(InputManager.Keyboard.KeyDown(Keys.B))
   {
      // The B key is down this frame.
   }

   if(InputManager.Keyboard.KeyReleased(Keys.C))
   {
      // The C key was just released - down last frame, up this frame.
   }

   if(InputManager.Keyboard.KeyTyped(Keys.D))
   {
      // The D key was just typed - either Pushed this frame or typed
      // again because the key was held down.
   }
}

Controlling Objects With the Keyboard

The Keyboard is commonly used to control objects like in-game characters and the Camera. The following code can be used to quickly control any PositionedObject Add the following using statement:

using FlatRedBall.Input;

Assuming positionedObject is a valid PositionedObject (or object inheriting from the PositionedObject class like a Sprite or Camera) add the following code in Update:

float velocityToApply = 10;
InputManager.Keyboard.ControlPositionedObject(positionedObject, velocityToApply);

For more control over input controlling movement, see the following entry on controlling the camera with the keyboard.