Increasing access

Having some symmetry where you can also do:

keyIsDown('a');

would be useful for teaching beginners.

Which types of changes would be made?

• Breaking change (Add-on libraries or sketches will work differently even if their code stays the same.)

  Systemic change (Many features or contributor workflows will be affected.)

  Overdue change (Modifications will be made that have been desirable for a long time.)

  Unsure (The community can help to determine the type of change.)
  To pick up a draggable item, press the space bar. While dragging, use the arrow keys to move the item. Press space again to drop the item in its new position, or press escape to cancel.

Most appropriate sub-area of p5.js?

• Accessibility

  Color

  Core/Environment/Rendering

  Data

  DOM

  Events

  Image

  IO

  Math

  Typography

  Utilities

  WebGL

  Build process

  Unit testing

  Internationalization

  Friendly errors

  Other (specify if possible)
  To pick up a draggable item, press the space bar. While dragging, use the arrow keys to move the item. Press space again to drop the item in its new position, or press escape to cancel.

What's the problem?

keyIsDown() currently only works with keycodes. Sometimes this is confusing for my students, because they can use this for things like:

keyIsDown(LEFT_ARROW);
keyIsDown(ENTER);

but if they want to check if an alphanumeric key is down, the code is different:

keyIsPressed && key == 'a'

What's the solution?

keyIsDown() would need an addition that checks the type of the argument and allows passing text/characters. This means p5.js would have some symmetry where you can also do:

keyIsDown('a');

Pros (updated based on community comments)

Example list:

• Consistency: This proposal increases API consistency by giving users a way to enter the name of an alphanumeric key for keyIsDown();
• can use keyIsDown() without having to look up keycodes

Cons (updated based on community comments)

• would this be confusing for cases like keyIsDown(4) where the user might mean the number 4? (note that 3, 8, and 9 are valid keycodes, so we can't just allow all numbers < 10)

Proposal status

Under review