KeyCode in the javafx.scene.robot.Robot interface

[Mark Raynsford]

Hello!

On 15/05/2024 14:49, Martin Fox wrote:
> Mark,
> 
> You may already know this but before JavaFX 21 the Mac and Windows Robot code had some long-standing bugs with non-US keyboards. Linux is in better shape but you can encounter problems if the user has installed multiple layouts (I have a PR pending to fix that). That might explain some of the flakey behavior you’ve been seeing. Your approach might also invoke an unexpected dead key depending on what modifiers you’re probing.

Very possible. I use this base set of keycodes:

https://github.com/io7m-com/xoanon/blob/ac7c9c900c7908c5760a74d6cf4056fe3ffb8e92/com.io7m.xoanon.commander/src/main/java/com/io7m/xoanon/commander/internal/XCCommander.java#L235

I iterate over each key in that set, sending that keycode to a text
field. I then do the same for each keycode but with the shift key held.
I don't doubt that it could cause havoc in some setups!

> With one exception JavaFX doesn’t have any facility for querying the keyboard layout. It relies on the platform code to take in keyboard events and translate them to JavaFX events on the fly. The exception is the internal call Toolkit.getKeyCodeForChar which attempts to map from a character to a KeyCode and is used to match shortcuts specified as KeyCharacterCombinations. Unfortunately the current implementation on Mac and Linux can’t really be extended to cover the sort of testing you’re trying to do.

Right.

> JavaFX needs a better framework for testing text entry and I’ve thought about how that might look...

In my case, I'm almost always testing whether some UI elements become
enabled or disabled based on validation occurring on a text field of
some kind. A recent case was checking to see if a text field correctly
rejected input that didn't appear to be an email address. Typing '@'
into the field was difficult to make reliable. :)

-- 
Mark Raynsford | https://www.io7m.com