Detecting and changing Num Lock

[Rick Holcomb]

Is it possible to detect when a user presses the Num lock key
in PB 3.5? I want to be able to disable the switching of Num
Lock off. I also would like to know how a key like this can
be monitored for a key press.

Rick


------------------
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Alan Earnshaw]

Yes and no. At any time, you can check the BIOS data area to see if NumLock is on, and you can easily toggle it on or off.

But to detect when the key is pressed, you must write your own keyboard handler. You can write a small one in assembler that hooks the keyboard interrupt to intercept that keypress and then allows the regular keyboard interrupt handler to do its job. Or you can completely replace the keyboard handler with your own.

The July 1997 issue of BASICally Speaking contained an article about replacing the keyboard interrupt handler, including PowerBASIC source code (with some inline assembler, which is unavoidable). You can download the code for free from our web site at http://www.infoms.com/archives.htm . You can also purchase the back issue for $4.00 from our online store.

Alan Earnshaw
Editor and Publisher, BASICally Speaking


------------------
Alan C. Earnshaw
Information Management Systems, Inc.
http://www.infoms.com

[Dave Stanton]

Here are some routines I have used.
Dave.

%RightShift  = 1
%LeftShift   = 2
%Control     = 4
%Alt         = 8
%ScrollLock  = 16
%NumLock     = 32
%CapsLock    = 64
%Insert      =128

%Keyread   =0
%Keyset    =1
%Keyunset  =2
%Alloff    =3

FUNCTION KeyReg(BYVAL Mask?,BYVAL Action?)
      DIM X AS LOCAL BYTE PTR
      X=1047
      SELECT CASE Action?
      CASE %Keyset
         @[email protected] OR Mask?
      CASE %Keyunset
         @[email protected] AND NOT Mask?
      CASE %AllOff
         @X=0?
      END SELECT
      [email protected]
END FUNCTION

FUNCTION Ispressed(BYVAL Mask?)
         FUNCTION=0
         IF (KeyReg(0,%KeyRead) AND Mask?)=Mask? THEN FUNCTION=1
END FUNCTION

SUB SetKeyReg(BYVAL Mask?)
    KeyReg Mask?,%KeySet
END SUB

SUB UnsetKeyReg(BYVAL Mask?)
    KeyReg Mask?,%KeyUnSet
END SUB

SUB ClearKeyReg
    KeyReg 0,%AllOff
END SUB

'Set some keys
 SetKeyReg %CapsLock+%Numlock+%ScrollLock
 LOCATE 2,2
 PRINT "Setting some keys, Press NumLock to see what happens"
 PRINT "[Esc] TO EXIT"
DO UNTIL INKEY$=CHR$(27)
  LOCATE 5,30
  PRINT KeyReg(0,%KeyRead);"   "
LOOP

'Unset all keys
 ClearKeyReg
 LOCATE 2,2
 PRINT "Unsetting All keys,Try some on                 "
 PRINT "[Esc] TO EXIT"
DO UNTIL INKEY$=CHR$(27)
  LOCATE 5,30
  PRINT KeyReg(0,%KeyRead);"   "
LOOP

------------------

[Rick Holcomb]

Thanks people. That did the trick.

Rick


------------------
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>