Ctrl vs Right Ctrl

[ark1320]

MSFS distinguishes between the left and right control keys (called Ctrl and Right Ctrl, respectively). However, FSUIPC7 does not distinguish between these two keys as best as I can determine.  I discovered this when trying to send a key stroke with a button push. The command I wanted to activate with a button needed the key combination Right Ctrl + Num1, but FSUIPC7 could apparently only send Ctrl + Num1.

I don't know how difficult it would be for a future release of FSUIPC7 to distinguish between the two control keys, but if reasonably doable it would be a useful addition to FSUIPC7.

Thx,

Al

EDIT: Seems the same situation as above applies to the left and right Shift keys (Shift and Right Shift) which MSFS distinguishes between, but FSUIPC7 does not.

 

[John Dowson]

Hi Al,

yes, this is something I can look into for a future release. I'll take a look next week to see what is needed {currently away from home} and get back to you.

Presume this also applies to key stroke assignments - I believe SimConnect already distinguishes between left/right keys, so it shouldn't be an issue.

John

[John Dowson]

Btw, for the time being, you can just re-assign the keypress in MSFS and not use the right ctrl (or shift) keys.

[ark1320]

9 hours ago, John Dowson said:

Presume this also applies to key stroke assignments

BTW John, the same issue applies to the Alt and Right Alt keys. Being able to distinguish between the two Ctrl, Shift and Alt keys makes a ton of additional key combinations available via FSUIPC7.

Thanks for looking into this,

Al

[John Dowson]

Yes, but I think I removed the Alt modifier in FSUIPC7 due to other issues, but I'll check. 

[ark1320]

The good news is there is only one Tab key!  😉

Al

[John Dowson]

@ark1320 Could you try the attached version, v7.2.11a. This should distinguish between the left and right shift and control keys, for button assignments to key presses, not for FSUIPC key assignments. I may update for FSUIPC key assignments at some point, but this will be low priority I'm afraid.

Existing assignments to the control or shift keys will only work using the left control/shify key when using this version.

I haven't checked the lua keypress functions. event.key certainly cannot be used to distinguish between left/right keys. It should (hopefully) be possible to distinguish and send left/right ctrl/shift using ipc.keypress / ipc.keypressplus, but I haven't checked these yet. I will do this shortly.

FYI, the additional flags used for this (P18 of Asvanced User manual) are:
    512 - Right Control
    1024 - Right Shift

Please try this and report back: FSUIPC7.exe

John

[ark1320]

4 hours ago, John Dowson said:

Could you try the attached version, v7.2.11a. This should distinguish between the left and right shift and control keys,

Hi John,

FSUIPC7 ver 7.2.11a does distinguish between left and right Ctrl and Shift keys for key strokes sent in response to a button push.

One interesting thing; with NumLock on the num2, num8, num4 and num6 keys show up as Down, Up, Left and Right when combined with one of the Shift keys.  But when combined with one of the Control keys, these numpad keys show up as num2, num8, num4 and num6.  So, for example, with Numlock on if I enter lshift + num2 in the keys to be sent when button pushed window, what I get is lshift+Down. However, if I enter lctl+num2 I get lctl+num2.  Not sure what to make of this, just passing the info on.

Thanks for working on distinguishing the left and right shift and control keys!

Al

[John Dowson]

15 hours ago, ark1320 said:

But when combined with one of the Control keys, these numpad keys show up as num2, num8, num4 and num6.  So, for example, with Numlock on if I enter lshift + num2 in the keys to be sent when button pushed window, what I get is lshift+Down. However, if I enter lctl+num2 I get lctl+num2.  Not sure what to make of this, just passing the info on.

Yes, very strange . In MSFS, a similar thing occurs, but with the shift + num8, for example, I get 'shift + num8 + Up'. Also, using the right Aly key gives 'alt + lctrl', which is also strange. And in MSFS, the right Alt key is recognised as 'Right Ctrl + Right Alt'! Not sure if I can do anything about these anomalies, as they also seem to affect MSFS, but I will look into it.

I think I'll also distinguish between the left/right alt keys for button assignments to keystrokes, so I'll update for this before I release officially.

John

 

[John Dowson]

3 hours ago, John Dowson said:

I think I'll also distinguish between the left/right alt keys for button assignments to keystrokes, so I'll update for this before I release officially.

This is not going to be possible, as the right alt key is recognised on my (and many) systems as lalt + lctrl. And on some keyboards its Alt Gr, which behaves similarly - at least on  my keyboards. Strange.

18 hours ago, ark1320 said:

One interesting thing; with NumLock on the num2, num8, num4 and num6 keys show up as Down, Up, Left and Right when combined with one of the Shift keys.

I think this is due to the shift (temporarily) cancelling the numlock, so the keys are seen as the Up, Down, etc keys in the windows message.

So, I'll leave it as it is - with just the left/right shift and control keys being distinguished.

John

[ark1320]

1 hour ago, John Dowson said:

I think this is due to the shift (temporarily) cancelling the numlock, so the keys are seen as the Up, Down, etc keys in the windows message.

I think you are correct. To me NumLock works as a kind of lockable shift toggle, so using the shift key toggles NumLock as you said. Interesting.

Al