Typing a dead key no longer throws an error

[michaelDCurran]

Link to issue number:

Fixes #18908

Summary of the issue:

After we moved to a tightened ctypes definition for user32.MapVirtualKeyEx, typing dead keys such as an acute on a German keyboard layout would throw an error such as:

  File "keyboardHandler.pyc", line 535, in _get_mainKeyName
ValueError: chr() arg not in range(0x110000)

Description of user facing changes:

No longer throws an error when typing dead keys.

Description of developer facing changes:

Description of development approach:

KeyboardInputGesture.mainKeyName: As MapVirtualKeyEx now correctly returns an unsigned int we must be more explisit about filtering out dead keys. A dead key is denoted when the highest bit is set.

Testing strategy:

• Switched to German keyboard layout.
• Typed an acute (to the left of backspace). No error thrown.
• Typed an 'a'. 'a acute' was announced and typed.

Known issues with pull request:

None known.

Code Review Checklist:

• Documentation:
  • Change log entry
  • User Documentation
  • Developer / Technical Documentation
  • Context sensitive help for GUI changes
• Testing:
  • Unit tests
  • System (end to end) tests
  • Manual testing
• UX of all users considered:
  • Speech
  • Braille
  • Low Vision
  • Different web browsers
  • Localization in other languages / culture than English
• API is compatible with existing add-ons.
• Security precautions taken.

[Copilot]

Pull Request Overview

This PR fixes an error that was introduced when ctypes definitions were tightened for user32.MapVirtualKeyEx. Previously, typing dead keys (like acute on German keyboard) would throw a ValueError when trying to convert the result to a character.

• Added explicit filtering to detect and exclude dead keys before character conversion
• Dead keys are identified by checking if the highest bit (bit 31) is set in the 32-bit return value

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[LeonarddeR]

Thanks for fixing this!