Request: Keyboard IN listen always, and listen for all (or more) keys

Wishlist and RFEs
1

This is a twofer request:

  1. Make TouchDesigner able to listen to keyboard inputs all the time, even when not in focus (think ‘hotkeys’ that other apps offer). This could be a toggleable option.

  2. Make TouchDesigner able to listen to all keys, including F13 to F24.

I’m able to do both with many other apps, and wish I could do so with TD because during live shows, I have to use various programs on the computer alongside TD, so I can’t guarantee TD has focus. Any chance this might be possible?

A note on F13 - F24: These are incredible keys (at least on Windows PC) that most programs don’t assign and using an app like SharpKeys or UCR, you can make a keyboard device send those specific keys without worrying about interfering with any other running softwares’ hotkeys. They also work great with Ctrl, Alt, Shift modifiers.

I’m currently using three methods for sending hardware inputs to TD that it is always able to listen to, even when not in focus:

  1. MIDI controllers; self-explanatory
  2. Joystick IN; works quite well, so glad it’s available!
  3. Wireless numpad with its keys remapped in registry (using SharpKeys) to F13-F24, Ctrl, Alt, Shift, and capturing this with LioranBoard as hotkeys, with each combination sending a message to TouchDesigner webserver as an event. The shortcoming here is that TD only sees the keypress event, and cannot distinguish between a key-down and key-up (ie. press and hold). If TD was natively able to listen to F13-F24, it would save a lot of single points of failure, whilst adding functionality.
1 Like