Key

enum

csharp

public enum Key

A key by its physical position, independent of the keyboard layout.

No guide page documents this yet — the page shows what the code says about itself.

Remarks

There is deliberately no second, layout-dependent enum. The names below are the US-QWERTY legends because something has to name a position, but the value identifies the key's place on the keyboard, not the character it produces: on a French AZERTY layout Q is the key labelled A, and on Dvorak W is where , is printed.

That is the right primitive for the two things games do with a keyboard. A binding — WASD movement — wants the physical position, so the shape under the player's left hand is the same on every layout, which is why every engine that shipped a layout-dependent binding system eventually rewrote it. Typing wants the character, and a character is not a key: it may need a dead key, an IME, or several keystrokes to produce. So typed text arrives as TextInput carrying a string, and never as a key code the caller is expected to translate.

The values follow the USB HID usage table for keyboards, which is what SDL, the browser (KeyboardEvent.code) and Windows scancodes all ultimately derive from, so a backend translates by table lookup rather than by a hundred-case switch.

Fields and properties (119)

Unknown
No key, or a key this platform does not report.
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
Number1
The 1 on the number row, not the numeric keypad.
Number2
Number3
Number4
Number5
Number6
Number7
Number8
Number9
Number0
Enter
Escape
Backspace
Tab
Space
Minus
Equals
LeftBracket
RightBracket
Backslash
Semicolon
Apostrophe
Grave
Comma
Period
Slash
CapsLock
F1
F2
F3
F4
F5
F6
F7
F8
F9
F10
F11
F12
PrintScreen
ScrollLock
Pause
Insert
Home
PageUp
Delete
End
PageDown
Right
Left
Down
Up
NumLock
KeypadDivide
KeypadMultiply
KeypadMinus
KeypadPlus
KeypadEnter
Keypad1
Keypad2
Keypad3
Keypad4
Keypad5
Keypad6
Keypad7
Keypad8
Keypad9
Keypad0
KeypadPeriod
NonUsBackslash
The extra key next to left shift on ISO keyboards, absent on ANSI ones.
Application
The menu key, and the same physical key Android reports for its menu button.
F13
F14
F15
F16
F17
F18
F19
F20
F21
F22
F23
F24
LeftControl
LeftShift
LeftAlt
Left Alt, and Option on a Mac.
LeftMeta
Left Windows, Command on a Mac, Super on Linux.
RightControl
RightShift
RightAlt
Right Alt, which is AltGr on layouts that have one.
RightMeta
Right Windows, Command on a Mac, Super on Linux.
Back
Android's hardware back button, and the browser's back gesture.

Used by (13)

DesktopInputSourceVixen.Platform.Desktop
HeadlessInputSourceVixen.Platform.Headless
HeadlessLifecycleTestsVixen.Platform.Headless.Tests
HeadlessPlatformTestsVixen.Platform.Headless.Tests
IInputSourceVixen.Platform
InputKeyTestsVixen.Input.Tests
PlatformEventVixen.Platform
PlatformEventBufferTestsVixen.Platform.Tests
PlatformEventTestsVixen.Platform.Tests
SdlTranslationVixen.Platform.Desktop
SdlTranslationTestsVixen.Platform.Desktop.Tests
PlatformInputTestsVixen.App.Tests
VixenApplicationTestsVixen.App.Tests