GM:S 1.4 Keyboard layout key definitions for customized controls

GM Version: ALL
Target Platform: ANY
Download: No download required

Summary:
This is how to put all your keyboard layout keys in one array and retrieve them after for customized user controls in your game.

Tutorial:
I wanted to give this piece of code for anyone wanting to have something fast to customize the controls and show them in your game. Please note that the keyboard layout is set for ENGLISH US. If some keys do not fit with the character's in the array, simply change the character string. There's way too many languages out their to sum it all out in one small array.

This piece of code is better placed in the create even of a controller that loads before anything else. It create's a global variable called "asc_def" defining every ascii code for each button on your keyboard. Even if this is said in the comments of the script, I'll mention it again, this won't give you the different 255 ascii codes but only tell you which key on the keyboard was pressed. I hope this will save the time for many other people.

Code:

// This script sets the names of the ascii values of the keyboard keys
// You can use this table to ask for controls or to show which controls do what.
// Good for customized user controls configuration

// NOTE: This will NOT tell you if a letter is lower case or not
//       It simply telles you which BUTTON on the keyboard is used.

global.asc_def[255] = "Undefined"; // Initialise array of key definitions

// Build key definitions table
for (var i=255;i>=0;i--)
  {
  global.asc_def[i] = "Undefined";
  }

// In GM, the controls are set to the keyboard keys and NOT
// every possible character. Below is the list of all the possible
// keycodes usually used with the built-in GM variable vk_ or ord()...
// Some characters, depending on your language, may vary. Simply
// modify the string in the table below to your needs. Default keyboard
// layout used is "English - US".

// Set known characters.
global.asc_def[8] = "Backspace";
global.asc_def[9] = "Tab";
global.asc_def[12] = "Numpad 5 (nmlk off)";
global.asc_def[13] = "Enter";
global.asc_def[19] = "Pause";
global.asc_def[20] = "Caps lock";
global.asc_def[27] = "Escape";
global.asc_def[32] = "Space";
global.asc_def[33] = "Page up";
global.asc_def[34] = "Page down";
global.asc_def[35] = "End";
global.asc_def[36] = "Home";
global.asc_def[37] = "Left";
global.asc_def[38] = "Up";
global.asc_def[39] = "Right";
global.asc_def[40] = "Down";
global.asc_def[45] = "Insert";
global.asc_def[46] = "Delete";
global.asc_def[48] = "0";
global.asc_def[49] = "1";
global.asc_def[50] = "2";
global.asc_def[51] = "3";
global.asc_def[52] = "4";
global.asc_def[53] = "5";
global.asc_def[54] = "6";
global.asc_def[55] = "7";
global.asc_def[56] = "8";
global.asc_def[57] = "9";
global.asc_def[65] = "A";
global.asc_def[66] = "B";
global.asc_def[67] = "C";
global.asc_def[68] = "D";
global.asc_def[69] = "E";
global.asc_def[70] = "F";
global.asc_def[71] = "G";
global.asc_def[72] = "H";
global.asc_def[73] = "I";
global.asc_def[74] = "J";
global.asc_def[75] = "K";
global.asc_def[76] = "L";
global.asc_def[77] = "M";
global.asc_def[78] = "N";
global.asc_def[79] = "O";
global.asc_def[80] = "P";
global.asc_def[81] = "Q";
global.asc_def[82] = "R";
global.asc_def[83] = "S";
global.asc_def[84] = "T";
global.asc_def[85] = "U";
global.asc_def[86] = "V";
global.asc_def[87] = "W";
global.asc_def[88] = "X";
global.asc_def[89] = "Y";
global.asc_def[90] = "Z";
global.asc_def[91] = "Windows";
global.asc_def[96] = "Numpad 0";
global.asc_def[97] = "Numpad 1";
global.asc_def[98] = "Numpad 2";
global.asc_def[99] = "Numpad 3";
global.asc_def[100] = "Numpad 4";
global.asc_def[101] = "Numpad 5";
global.asc_def[102] = "Numpad 6";
global.asc_def[103] = "Numpad 7";
global.asc_def[104] = "Numpad 8";
global.asc_def[105] = "Numpad 9";
global.asc_def[106] = "Numpad *";
global.asc_def[107] = "Numpad +";
global.asc_def[109] = "Numpad -";
global.asc_def[110] = "Numpad .";
global.asc_def[111] = "Numpad /";
global.asc_def[112] = "F1";
global.asc_def[113] = "F2";
global.asc_def[114] = "F3";
global.asc_def[115] = "F4";
global.asc_def[116] = "F5";
global.asc_def[117] = "F6";
global.asc_def[118] = "F7";
global.asc_def[119] = "F8";
global.asc_def[120] = "F9";
global.asc_def[121] = "F10";
global.asc_def[122] = "F11";
global.asc_def[123] = "F12";
global.asc_def[144] = "Num lock";
global.asc_def[145] = "Scroll lock";
global.asc_def[160] = "Shift (left)";
global.asc_def[161] = "Shift (right)";
global.asc_def[162] = "Ctrl (left)";
global.asc_def[163] = "Ctrl (right)";
global.asc_def[164] = "Alt (left)";
global.asc_def[165] = "Alt (right)";
global.asc_def[186] = ";";
global.asc_def[187] = "=";
global.asc_def[188] = ",";
global.asc_def[189] = "-";
global.asc_def[190] = ".";
global.asc_def[191] = "?";
global.asc_def[192] = "~";
global.asc_def[219] = "[";
global.asc_def[220] = "\";
global.asc_def[221] = "]";
global.asc_def[222] = "'";

 

Nice stuff. I made one for my game which covers English and French. (my game is billingual)
Do you have an "any key" on this? Could be an idea if you didn't.

 

This script is to assign strings to keyboard buttons. There is no button on a keyboard called "any key". If you have such a need simply check if keycode > 0 and output your string as "any key". As for multiple languages, GM can only handle 2 dimensional arrays so for each global.asc_def, you would have a second dimension [#,0] for a language and [x,1] for another one. In your case RangerX:

global.asc_def[13,0] = "Enter";
global.asc_def[13,1] = "Entré";

Or else, simply hav a translator that checks the language and translates every string from english to french. For example a script that would be a bit like this (may not be exact for GML but you can understand where it's going:

key_def = global.asc_def(keycode);
if (language="fr") {key_def = scr_translate(key_def,"fr")}

Thanks for your comment and your thoughts are well taken into account, I could add more to the code in the futur!

 

Why are these

global.asc_def[186] = ";";
global.asc_def[187] = "=";
global.asc_def[188] = ",";
global.asc_def[189] = "-";
global.asc_def[190] = ".";
global.asc_def[191] = "?";
global.asc_def[192] = "~";
global.asc_def[219] = "[";
global.asc_def[220] = "\";
global.asc_def[221] = "]";
global.asc_def[222] = "'";

and even other numbers you wrote not the same value as the ascii table in game maker studio helpfiles?

I don't understand anything about ascii anymore...

I though that it was you push a button -> ascii code -> show ascii code character on screen.

Also your keys work but the only that are not working for me are the more special characters as ^$µù=[]? Can someone explain?

 

As I mentionned. This only tells you which BUTTON on the keyboard was pressed and not which character was typed.

As for the special keys, I noted that the layout was entered as a US English keyboard. If you need it for another language, you will need to modify the strings in the array to your needs.

 

A small error slipped in the code where the insert and delete keys were mapped to the same keycode. I changed it in the code in the first post. Thank to @Energy Engine for submitting this issue.

 

How do i exactly implement this and use it?

 

After, on each KeyPress event, you retrieve the vaue to print on the player's screen using global.asc_def[ascii_code_pressed];
Of course, this is for GM 1.4. As for GM 2.0, I cannot confirm it still works the same way.

 

Do you maybe have an example file I could see? I just can't get it to wrap around my head properly with my current setup

 

Unfortunately I did not use GM for a while and I am really busy in preparing for a trip so I cannot give you a solid GM 1.4 example. I'm sorry . But I remember this code perfectly.

This code is a simple array that you call in a global object. That is an object you will load before all the others in a room. So you paste this script in the creation event of this object, usually, it's in a controller object. Once this script has been loaded, the global.asc_def array is available for all objects in the game.

This permits a developper to create a customized player input room. For example, permit the player to change the controls in their game for other keys than those you chose. When they press a keyboard key, you simply retrieve the information in the global.asc_def array which is in string format. And you can draw that text on the screen to show the user which key he/she pressed.

This script is a really simple array. It does not do anything else than store 255 different strings in memory to let us have access to a string representation of a keycode. GM 1.4 treats keycodes differently than ascii codes. Keycodes represent the physical button pressed as for ascii codes represent the actual character types. So to say things clearer, if you keep caps lock on and type the letter "A" and then turn caps off and type "a", my array will always return "A" because it's the physical "A" key on the keyboard that was pressed. It permits us to use keycodes and actually see the right key in string format that was pressed.

You would simply add a keyboard event or do a keyboard_keydown() call and return the given keycode in a string variable that will be used to show onscreen what was just pressed. It's good for debugging and for player custom controls rooms. I hope this answer your question a bit

 

Actually never mind! I figured it all out. I've been working for too long and forgot how everything runs... Anyways, thanks for your help!

 

I really appreciate your explanation, It was just me being a fool not actually realizing what I was doing