Getting Caps Lock status :)

[villares]

Back in 2018 I had a sketch in Processing Python mode where I wanted to use the Caps Lock status as an interface input, to change "view modes".

One can check for key == CODED and key_code == 20 to see if Caps Lock was pressed, but then you have to keep track of the status in a global flag variable, etc., and I didn't want any of that... (and you actually can track changes but not the the initial status...) so I went digging and found java.awt.Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getLockingKeyState(20).

You can still do that with py5! You just have to import java from jpype. As a bonus, while I was rewriting this example, I found out that key seems to start as NUL / chr(0) at the start of a sketch, good to know, I suppose...

import py5
from java.awt import Toolkit

def setup():
    py5.size(400, 400)
    py5.text_size(40)
    py5.text_align(py5.CENTER, py5.CENTER)
    py5.text_font(py5.create_font('Noto Sans', 40))
def draw():
    if py5.frame_count == 1:
        print(repr(py5.key), ord(py5.key), py5.key_code) 
    py5.background(100)
    is_caps_locked = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getLockingKeyState(20)
    if is_caps_locked:
        py5.no_fill()
        py5.rect(100, 100, 100, 100)
    py5.fill(0, 0, 100)    
    py5.text(py5.key, 150, 150)
    
def key_pressed(e):
    if py5.key == py5.CODED and py5.key_code == 20:
        print('CAPS LOCK')
    else:
        print(py5.key, py5.key_code)

py5.run_sketch()

PS: The Noto fonts, named after the noble goal of "No Tofu", no missing glyphs, just doesn't live to its aspirations: ASCII 20 "Device Control 4" has no glyph! 😆 .

UPDATED: I updated with the tip bellow from @hx2A!!!

[hx2A]

Neat! Thank you for sharing this.

If you want to make it even more elegant, you can try this:

import py5

from java.awt import Toolkit

JPype does some Python sorcery to make importing Java packages look like importing Python libraries. Anything on the classpath is applicable. py5 sets this up for you when it is imported (after it starts the JVM). You can then import Toolkit using the above code if you do it after import py5.

Happy coding!

[villares]

Great, thank you! I must have tried it in the wrong order, because I had a vague memory I could import stuff from java thanks to jpype but couldn't do it. I have updated the post now!