character-message

Generic Function

Package: common-graphics

Arguments: window buttons character

Called when a character-message event happens on window.

buttons is an integer representing the state of mouse button(s) and keypad. Bits in the buttons represent the state of modifier keys: 1 indicating that the key is down and 0 that it is up.

character is the character that was typed. It is always a Common Lisp character object.

While a keypress will always cause virtual-key-down and virtual-key-up to be called, it will cause character-message to be called only under certain conditions. First, the keypress must indicate a graphical character. second, one of the following must be true:

The window in which the key was pressed is a dialog-mixin instance or a child or other descendant of a dialog-mixin instance.
The default virtual-key-down method must run (since this method tells the operating system to generate a character message from the virtual-key-down message).

Therefore, if an application adds a virtual-key-down method for a window that is not on a dialog, and this method does not call (call-next-method) for a particular keypress, then the default virtual-key-down method is not called, and therefore character-message will not be called for that keypress.

See About events in the IDE in cgide.htm.

Common Graphics and IDE documentation is described in About Common Graphics and IDE documentation in cgide.htm.

The documentation is described in introduction.htm and the index is in index.htm.

Created 2000.10.5.