Does anyone know if there is a way to make PD keep "hearing" keystrokes when it is not the active window/application?

Let me explain. I use PD as a MIDI controller for ableton live. it lets me get custom functionality out of old hardware controllers.

What I want to do is map knobs in ableton to pairs of keystrokes in PD - very easy -

"A" key = turn knob right
"Z" key = turn knob left.

This works fine AS LONG AS PD is the active window - i.e. the last program to be clicked on.

But as soon as I touch sometghing in ableton with the mouse PD stops hearing the keystrokes - and I need to be able to use the mouse with ableton

Anyone know a workaround??

Cheers

W

If you're on OS X, you might want to try hid. At least in Max you can get keystrokes via the hi-object there - I don't know if its the same for pd, my extended doesn't have a hid helpfile for some reason.

is hid an object? I'm on a windows machine unfortunately : (

[hidin] is the Windows version of [hid], I believe.

Thanks ... it is indeed. What does it do? The help file just has a patch which lists devices without explaining what it does ... How can it help me route keystrokes to PD when its not the active window ?

if it helps this is what I get when I run the patch

hidin: ** found 9 devices on your system
DEVICES: -1 None
DEVICES: 1
DEVICES: 2
DEVICES: 3
DEVICES: 4
hidin: -- could not get device #5: Access is denied.

hidin: -- can not read from mouse and keyboard
DEVICES: 5 Unsupported Device
hidin: -- could not get device #6: Access is denied.

hidin: -- can not read from mouse and keyboard
DEVICES: 6 Unsupported Device
hidin: -- could not get device #7: Access is denied.

hidin: -- can not read from mouse and keyboard
DEVICES: 7 Unsupported Device
hidin: -- could not get device #8: Access is denied.

hidin: -- can not read from mouse and keyboard
DEVICES: 8 Unsupported Device
hidin: -- could not get device #9: Access is denied.

hidin: -- can not read from mouse and keyboard
DEVICES: 9 Unsupported Device

Thanks again.

W

Hey wadeorz,

I found this thread from the Pd-list archives:

http://lists.puredata.info/pipermail/pd-list/2004-10/022979.html

It's from 2004, so I don't know if anything's changed since, but it basically says [hidin] can't access the mouse or keyboard due to Windows restrictions. So it looks like it isn't actually the answer for you.

thanks anyway dude

Why don't you try using a gamepad instead of the keyboard? I m not entirely sure but i believe it won't require Pd to be the active window in order to work. Just keep in mind that [hidin] doesn't work quite as well as [hid] with gamepads. I won't recognise all the buttons in some cases. But if you only need to control a small number of knobs in Ableton [hidin] should be sufficient.