Question

How do I handle key presses and key up events in the windows message loop? I need to be able to call two functions OnKeyUp(char c); and OnKeyDown(char c);.

Current literature I’ve found from googling has lead me to confusion over WM_CHAR or WM_KEYUP and WM_KEYDOWN, and is normally targeted at PDA or Managed code, whereas I’m using C++.

Answer 1

Use char c = MapVirtualKey(param,MAPVK_VK_TO_CHAR); to convert virtual key codes to char, and process WM_KEYUP and WM_KEYDOWN and their wParams.

if (PeekMessage (&mssg, hwnd, 0, 0, PM_REMOVE))
{
    switch (mssg.message)
    {
        case WM_QUIT:
            PostQuitMessage (0);
            notdone = false;
            quit = true;
            break;

        case WM_KEYDOWN:
            WPARAM param = mssg.wParam;
            char c = MapVirtualKey (param, MAPVK_VK_TO_CHAR);
            this->p->Input ()->Keyboard ()->Listeners ()->OnKeyDown (c);
            break;

        case WM_KEYUP:
            WPARAM param = mssg.wParam;
            char c = MapVirtualKey (param, MAPVK_VK_TO_CHAR);
            this->p->Input ()->Keyboard ()->Listeners ()->OnKeyUp (c);
            break;
    }
    // dispatch the message
    TranslateMessage (&mssg);
    DispatchMessage (&mssg);
}