get keys on a console app?! how?!

[MrPolite]

Well is it possible to recieve the key down event in a console?
right now I'm doing console.readline which requires Enter to be pressed, I want the program to recieve each key as they are being pressed. is it possible to do with a console app?

[Cander]

mm no dont think so..at least nothing straight forward. Console is fairly limited. Perhaps some API's to detect actions in another window.............

[Hu Flung Dung]

I saw that there was a method for setting the console input to a TextStream object, though I havn't messed with that yet.

I'll go see if doing so would allow me to read individual keystrokes.

[Cander]

there is also some class called
System.IO._ConsoleStream

Ill research into that some


Hu Flung Dung...LOL...thats pretty funny.

[Cander]

ok..you cant do it for sure without api, but i do have a dll I wrote in c# that will do this for you...you want?

[Cander]

unzip this dll into your projects folder and add a refernce to it. Here is some sample VB code to use it. BTW the reason I put it into a dll is because the code is C# and there were a couple operators I couldnt figure out the VB equivilant of to transfer the code to VB

Imports System

Public Module Test
	Public Sub Main()
		Dim tst As New ConsoleMode()
		tst.EnableCharMode()
		
		Dim i As integer
		While True
		    i = Console.Read()
		    Console.Writeline(Microsoft.VisualBasic.Chr(i))
		    If i = 120 then Exit While ' If x is hit, then exit
		End While
    		tst.EnableLineMode()
	End Sub
End Module

[Hu Flung Dung]

Originally posted by Cander
unzip this dll into your projects folder and add a refernce to it. Here is some sample VB code to use it. BTW the reason I put it into a dll is because the code is C# and there were a couple operators I couldnt figure out the VB equivilant of to transfer the code to VB

Imports System

Public Module Test
	Public Sub Main()
		Dim tst As New ConsoleMode()
		tst.EnableCharMode()
		
		Dim i As integer
		While True
		    i = Console.Read()
		    Console.Writeline(Microsoft.VisualBasic.Chr(i))
		    If i = 120 then Exit While ' If x is hit, then exit
		End While
    		tst.EnableLineMode()
	End Sub
End Module

You didn't need to compile it. You could have just uploaded the CS file (is that the C# code file extension?). Then we could have added it to our projects. Just because you have a Visual Basic project doesn't mean that all of your code needs to be in Visual Basic. You could have 1 file written in VB, another in C#, and another in C++, and they would all compile together just fine.

Ahh, gotta love .NET!

Anyway, I was busy just now so I couldn't check out the TextStream object. I'll do that right now.

EDIT:

Never mind. Mis-understood your post.

[Cander]

yeah , but I dont use Visual Studio, just the command line and notepad so I dont get that luxury..

Ill eventually isntall VS .Net but right now I have been quite happy with notepad



but here is the actual class code if you want it

using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

public class ConsoleMode
{

	const int STD_INPUT_HANDLE = -10;
	const int ENABLE_LINE_INPUT = 0x0002;
	const int ENABLE_ECHO_INPUT = 0x0004;
	[DllImport("kernel32")]
	public static extern IntPtr GetStdHandle(int nStdHandle);
	[DllImport("kernel32")]
	public static extern bool SetConsoleMode(IntPtr hConsoleHandle, int mode);
	[DllImport("kernel32")]
	public static extern bool GetConsoleMode(IntPtr hConsoleHandle, ref int pmode);

	
	public static void EnableCharMode()
	{
		IntPtr hConsole;
		int mode= 0;
		hConsole = GetStdHandle(STD_INPUT_HANDLE);
		GetConsoleMode(hConsole, ref mode);
		mode &= ~ (ENABLE_LINE_INPUT | ENABLE_ECHO_INPUT);
		SetConsoleMode(hConsole, mode);
	}

	public static void EnableLineMode()
	{
		IntPtr hConsole;
		int mode=0;
		hConsole = GetStdHandle(STD_INPUT_HANDLE);
		GetConsoleMode(hConsole, ref mode);
		mode |= (ENABLE_LINE_INPUT | ENABLE_ECHO_INPUT);
		SetConsoleMode(hConsole, mode);
	}
}

btw if anyone knows the equvialnt of what ~ and |= is for VB, please let me know

[Hu Flung Dung]

I'm not completely sure what those do. Seems like their bitwise operators (the bitwise operators in VB are AND, OR, XOR, and NOT) from what I see in MSDN, but it doesn't describe their functionality too well.

Anyway, you should really install Visual Studio .NET. Its over 2 GB (pretty large, heh) but its definately worth it. You get MSDN help, intellisense, tons of debugging tools, you can easily design forms, it has a web-page editor built in (for ASP.NET), and a whole bunch of other impressive features.

[Cander]

yeah i think |= might remove values bitwise. It is obviously the opposite of &= but VB .NET supports &= but apparently not |=

I will eventually install VS .NET, I just feel I am learning alot more by doing everything in notepad. Plus I have a new computer coming in for me at work in a couple months, but the one I have here now just wont handle VS .NET to well.

[Cander]

stupid me..why didnt i just look in my C# book,

~ isnt listed but
| is the Or bitwise operator.

[Cander]

~ is a binary inverter basically it inverts the binary value of a byte

now if I can just figure out the VB equivilant.

[MrPolite]

eeeeeh Cander, you have an answer for every question, dont you?

Thanks a lot for your help... I added a reference to the dll file but for some reason it doesnt work. It says that consoleMode isnt defined (Type 'ConsoleMode' is not defined.)

btw MS did a good favor to everyone by adding console apps to VS so you dotn have to mess with APIs. Now why the hell didnt they make it somehow that it would work compeletly?!!!!

[Cander]

well the console is pretty much useless in windows anyway

umm..

change ConsoleMode to Con as I may have kept it as Con when I compiled the dll

[MrPolite]

WORKS!!! thanks

[Magiaus]

Cander is awsome. he should fix my tiny problem for me. heh.

[Cander]

Originally posted by Magiaus
Cander is awsome. he should fix my tiny problem for me. heh.

man my ego is growing!

Read the reply to your post..