down-key-names

Arguments: nil

Returns a list of names indicating the keyboard keys and mouse buttons that were in a pressed-down state when the event that is currently being handled occurred. Each name is either the lisp character shown on a key or one of the "vk-..." constants that are the value of the constant key-names.

This function operates per-thread. Specifically, keypresses that are done while a window that was created in a particular thread has the keyboard focus will not be included in the list returned by a call that is made to down-key-names in any other thread. (An exception is that if there is a single window hierarchy that contains windows from both threads, then the operating system appears to combine the event queues of the two threads, and down-key-names will still include the keys that were pressed in a window of the other thread.)

Compatibility note: Through version 6.0, the returned list did not include elements for the keys associated with lisp characters, and included only the vk-... symbols. This was not particularly useful, as it indicated what some but not all the pressed keys were. All keys on standard PC keyboards should now be covered.

See also down-keys, key-is-down-p, key-was-down-p, and mouse-button-state.

Copyright (c) 1998-2001, Franz Inc. Berkeley, CA., USA. All rights reserved.
Documentation for Allegro CL version 6.1 update # 1. This page was not revised.
Created 2001.12.15.