[BUG] or expected behaviour - rawKeyUp (or Down)

[Kay C Lan]

Whilst trying to track rawKeyUp messages I was having great success as
everything was straight ASCII, until I started to deal with DELETE, TAB, and
RETURN  keys.

Create a new stack and place this script into the Stack Script:
(this is a 3 line script, watch line wraps)

on rawKeyUp tKeyCode
    put numToChar(tKeyCode) & " is charToNum:" && tKeyCode & \
        cr & numToChar (tKeyCode) & "is keyCode:" && tKeyCode & \
        cr & "TAB is charToNum:" && charToNum(tab) & \
        cr & "CR is charToNum:" && charToNum(cr.) into msg
end rawKeyUp

If you start tapping keys you will see that tKeyCode is simply the ASCII
code equivalent. Great, this makes checking which key was pressed very easy.
There is no effect if modifier keys are pressed, i.e. option + 8 does not do
the • (bullet) but produces 8 and it's ASCII 56. This lack of effect of
modifier keys is explained in the Rev Dictionary, so no problem there.

But when we get to DELETE, TAB and RETURN keys, things change, instead of
producing 8,9 and 10* we get 65288, 65289 and 65293* (on OS X) - Basically
65280 + the ASCII number*

This appears to be some kind of Unicode, except the Rev Dictionary says
useUnicode is a Local property which is normally False, so in this script,
as it was not set, it should be False.

So my first question is, does this appear to be correct behaviour as I don't
understand why the tKeyCode for DELETE, TAB and RETURN* does not just report
as 8, 9 and 10*?

*What constitutes RETURN in Rev is fully explained in the dictionary.
Although Unix use LF = ASCII 10, and Mac uses CR = ASCII 13, and Windows
uses CR+LF, 13 10; Rev in ALL cases uses LF = ASCII 10 as it's end of line
character.

So for rawKeyUp (and rawKeyDown) on Mac it appears to produce a tKeyCode of
65280 + 13 i.e. the ASCII for Mac CR, not Rev RETURN = LF (ASCII 10).

That then raises the next question. I'm hoping that the raw keycode for
DELETE and TAB on Unix/Linux, Mac and Win are all the same - 65288. 65289.
But I get the feeling that the keycode for RETURN (Enter) may be 65290 on
Unix/Linux, it is 65293 on my MBP, and absolutely no clue for Win.

Lastly, is there any chance that these codes may change if you are using an
Extended Keyboard or different keyboard layouts - i.e. MacBooks have
different layouts to MacBook Pros, which have separate Enter keys that have
a keyCode of 65421.

I'm on SnoLeo with a MBP.