Question about keyboard inputs

[Brooke-8]

Hi all!

I'm part of a university team who is trying to use Cockpit for piloting our underwater ROV. So far we have had great success with the software and it works great with our XInput and DInput controllers, but we haven't managed to figure out how to use the keyboard for controls.

I was wondering if keyboard is currently supported, both for piloting and interface control shortcuts such as changing views/profiles, and if it is how would we go about setting it up? Thanks!

[patrickelectric]

At the moment Cockpit does not have support to keyboard inputs, we have a couple of issues related to keyboard already as key features: https://github.com/bluerobotics/cockpit/issues?q=sort%3Aupdated-desc%20is%3Aissue%20is%3Aopen%20keyboard

But the idea, at least what I have in mind, is that joystick and keyboard inputs should be agnostic, as a normal game, where there is the possibility to use any input event as a controller for anything in the vehicle and interface.

[Brooke-8]

Alright thank you for the help!
Out of curiosity, how difficult do you think it would it be currently to implement keyboard inputs if we want to try ourselves on a fork/branch?

[rafaellehmkuhl]

If you implement the keyboard as an extra possibility in /src/libs/joystick/manager.ts, this could turn out not to be that hard. You could implement the logic inside a keyboard.ts file and do the calling from there.

Some points to consider during implementation:

• Is the keyboard going to be considered a joystick that is always connected?
• Is there going to be a dedicated Electron implementation to allow for keys to be pressed even when the app is not in focus (as we have for joysticks, with the SDL layer)?