Always More Hats

Every time I need keyboard input in a flash application, I have three options:

1. Use the built-in event handler
2. Use what’s supplied (usually only for certain programming assignments)
3. Make my own

Option 1 is not an option if I need to do anything better than check if it’s down at all. I can’t use it for anything to detect a simple button press (up this frame and down last frame) or anything more complicated than detecting if a button is down or released.

Option 2 is usually not much better and only available on a few assignments. Usually it’s only slightly better than normal and functionality can vary widely from program to program. I want a certain degree of consistency.

Option 3 has so far been the best, but is usually time consuming. I had one that I would reuse, but it was very limited without having to go and touch the base code. As the programs got more complex, it became more cumbersome as I had to work around the limitations.

I decided to make another keyboard manager, and this time with every feature I could ever practically seeing myself needing. I’ve made it as extensible and optimized as I could make it and made sure to fully document it as well.

I would like to present the KeySmith Keyboard Manager.

You can download and use it on my Projects page. It’s free for anyone to use under a Creative Commons license.