key capture?

ropers

Hiya,

Is there any way to capture (single) keystrokes/characters to PHP without the user having to press enter and without using Java? (Solutions involving JavaScript, etc. are ok, as long as the input can ultimately reach PHP.)

Thanks and regards,
ropers

devinemke

keystrokes, mouse clicks and the like all happen on client. PHP runs on the server. as such PHP has no idea what's happening on the client until the client sends an HTTP request to the server.

so the short answer to your question is...yes:

if i have a text field in a form and i type "HELLO" and submit the form, then PHP knows that i hit the following keys my keyboard: H-E-L-L-O

ropers

devinemke wrote:
keystrokes, mouse clicks and the like all happen on client. PHP runs on the server. as such PHP has no idea what's happening on the client until the client sends an HTTP request to the server.

so the short answer to your question is...yes:

if i have a text field in a form and i type "HELLO" and submit the form, then PHP knows that i hit the following keys my keyboard: H-E-L-L-O

Thanks for the reply. 🙂

However, it's not what I wanted to hear and I'm not ready to take "no" for an answer. 😉

It can't be done purely with PHP. That much is clear. It probably can be done with Java -- but I don't want the browser having to load Java just to capture some lousy stinkin' keystroke. 😉 So other than that, how can it be done? Is there any way to capture single keystrokes with JavaScript and send them over to the server (i.e. to PHP)? Or is there any other way?

Any other takers on this one?

Many thanks in advance! 🙂

mrhappiness

maybe ajax can be of help?

ropers

Yes and no.

AJAX is a fairly generic buzzword denoting certain ways to utilize (typically) JavaScript code.
What we're seeking to get at here, however, is not high-level buzzwords, but actual solutions; actual code that is good for the actual plumbing.

But anyway -- thanks for the reply.

leatherback

As mentioned before: you need to use a form of javascript. It is not really clear what need to be loaded, but you can consider doing:
JAvascript, linked in the body tag: use a combination of onkeyup() and window.location.href=window.location.href"

Or of onkeyup and a tag-rewrite funstion to add: ?myvar=VarValue to the end of each tag that needs changing.

I would however reconsider the logic of what you are building. There is probably a different way to reach the solution.

ropers

Thanks for that, leatherback. That's a start. I'm actually currently quite clueless about JavaScript (and no PHP wizard either), but, hey, I've got a fair amount of curiosity and I can RTFM.

What I'm trying to do here --and please don't laugh, it's a mental idea-- is this:

You may know the site http://command.com.
They just use an animated gif there.
Seeing that site set me off thinking: What if one could build a web site that would really have a working DOS command line as its user interface? (It would almost be an in-joke now, as less and less people grow up knowing any DOS at all.)

It's gotta emulate a 80x25 DOS screen, using the standard text font (probably to be pieced together using a 80x25 table of little .pngs or similar). The backend's gotta be PHP, I've pretty much settled on that. But just using a single <form> input line to submit commands isn't good enough. I'm still looking for a way to capture keystrokes in some other way.

And yes, I know it is a crackbrained idea. Thanks for telling me.

Any further hints and pointers GREATLY appreciated.

leatherback

Hm.. I would use a textarea for input, I think.. But ..
Let me think about this a but. Meanwhile look at this:

  <textarea onkeydown=\"detectKey(event, 'text')\" onkeyup=\"updatepreview('text')\" class=\"formel_1\" cols=40 rows=15 name=\"text\">


// the functions:



function detectKey(e, element)
  {
  var code;
  if(!e) var e=window.event;
  if(e.keyCode){code=e.keyCode;}
  else if(e.which){code=e.which;}
  else{code = 0;}
  if(code==13)
    {

document.entryform.elements[element].value = document.entryform.elements[element].value + "<br>" ;

}

  }



function updatepreview()
  {
  var input = document.entryform.text.value;
  input = replaceSubstring(input,\"[i]\",\"<i>\");   

  input = replaceSubstring(input,\"[b]\",\"<b>\");   

  input = replaceSubstring(input,\"[/i]\",\"</i>\");   

  input = replaceSubstring(input,\"[/b]\",\"</b>\");   

  document.getElementById('preview').innerHTML = input ;
  }
  ";
  }

ropers

Thanks for the reply.
I, too, need to go off thinking however. Coolish as my idea seems to me, it does look like I bit off a bit more than I can chew at this time. It's also becoming increasingly clear to me that the command.com idea would be very hard to implement without Java, would probably require extensive javascripting, and would probably be SLOOOOOOOOW. So a working solution would probably best consist of Java at the client end of things and PHP running on the server.

Sadly, if I said before that my knowledge of Javascript was minuscule, my knowledge of Java, is outright nonexistant. So it looks like I'll have to prfoundly defer this project, or get greater hackers interested...

But again, thanks for all the help. 🙂

And I have to add: line 2 and 3 of your signature are actually VERY good help! 🙂

leatherback

ropers wrote:
And I have to add: line 2 and 3 of your signature are actually VERY good help! 🙂

Particularly the print_r() has helped me from being stupid on this forum quite often. (Yeayeah.. I know. I still make a fool of myself every once in a while. But imagine what it would have been!)

The speed should not have to be too slow, as long as the data/communnication to the server would be minimal. I think you can do it with pure javascript, textarea & CSS though...

Hungry?