KbQueueCreate
>Psychtoolbox>PsychBasic
KbQueueCreate([deviceNumber][, keyList][, numValuators=0][, numSlots=10000][, flags=0][, windowHandle=0])
The routines KbQueueCreate, KbQueueStart, KbQueueStop, KbQueueCheck
KbQueueWait, KbQueueFlush and KbQueueRelease provide replacements for
KbCheck and KbWait, providing the following advantages:
1) Brief key presses that would be missed by [KbCheck](KbCheck) or [KbWait](KbWait)
are reliably detected
2) The times of key presses are recorded more accurately
3) The times of key releases are also recorded
Limitations:
1) If a key is pressed multiple times before [KbQueueCheck](KbQueueCheck) is called,
only the times of the first and last presses and releases of that
key can be recovered (this has no effect on other keys)
2) If many keys are pressed very quickly in succession on OSX, it is
at least theoretically possible for the queue to fill more quickly
than it can be emptied, losing key events temporarily while filled
to capacity. The queue holds up to thirty events, and events are
constantly being removed from the queue and processed, so this is
unlikely to be a problem in actual use.
The deviceNumber of a HID input device can be specified as ‘deviceNumber’.
Allowable devices are “keyboard like” devices, e.g., Keyboards, Keypads,
Mouse, Joystick, Gamepad, Touchpad, etc. - Stuff that has buttons or keys
to press. This way a mouse or joysticks buttons can be used as response
devices, ignoring mouse movements etc. If deviceNumber is not specified, the first
device is the default (like KbCheck)). If KbQueueCreate has not been called
first, the other routines will generate an error message. Likewise, if
KbQueueRelease has been called more recently than KbQueueCreate, the other
routines will generate error messages.
It is acceptable to call KbQueueCreate at any time (e.g., to switch to a new
device or to change the list of queued keys) without calling KbQueueRelease.
KbQueueCreate([deviceNumber][, keyList][, numValuators=0][, numSlots=10000][, flags=0][, windowHandle=0])
Creates the queue for the specified (or default) device number
If the device number is less than zero, the default device is used.
'keyList' is an optional 256-length vector of doubles (not logicals)
with each element corresponding to a particular key (use [KbName](KbName)
to map between keys and their positions). If the double value
corresponding to a particular key is zero, events for that key
are not added to the queue and will not be reported.
'numValuators' is an optional maximum number of additional values to report.
It defaults to zero. For values greater than zero, if the selected type
of input device supports this, and if the operating system supports this,
additional info will be recorded. For pointing devices like mice, the mouse
position may be reported, for joysticks the state of their various axis, etc.
For mouse/joystick/pointing device position reporting numValuators must be
at least 2. On touch devices, a value of 2 treats them like a mouse, a value
\>= 4 treats them as touchscreen. However, for touch devices there are separate
functions like [TouchQueueCreate](TouchQueueCreate), [TouchEventGet](TouchEventGet) etc. for convenient handling.
See "help [KbEventGet](KbEventGet)" for how to retrieve potential additionally recorded
information.
'numSlots' defines how many events the event buffer can store. If a script
does not periodically remove events via [KbEventGet](KbEventGet)() or [KbEventFlush](KbEventFlush)(), the
buffer will fill up, and once 'numSlots' elements are stored, it will stop
recording new events. 10000 elements capacity is the default, which may be
too little if you use 'numValuators' \> 0 to store dynamic (motion) data like
mouse movements or touchscreen input, which can be generated at rates of
multiple hundred events per second of data collection.
'flags' defines special modes of operation for the queue. These are OS
specific, see "[PsychHID](PsychHID) [KbQueueCreate](KbQueueCreate)?" for an up to date list of supported
flags. In general, you don't need these.
'windowHandle' defines the optional onscreen window handle of an associated
onscreen window. By default, input is taken for all windows and screens.
This argument is silently ignored on systems other than Linux/X11 at the moment.
No events are delivered to the queue until [KbQueueStart](KbQueueStart) or
[KbQueueWait](KbQueueWait) is called.
[KbQueueCreate](KbQueueCreate) can be called again at any time. The function can also
treat other HID devices with buttons or keys as if they are
keyboards. E.g., it can also record button state of a mouse, a
joystick or a gamepad.
KbQueueStart([deviceNumber])
Starts delivering keyboard events from the specified device to the
queue.
KbQueueStop([deviceNumber])
Stops delivery of new keyboard events from the specified device to
the queue.
Data regarding events already queued is not cleared and can be
recovered by KbQueueCheck
[pressed, firstPress, firstRelease, lastPress, lastRelease]=
KbQueueCheck([deviceNumber])
Obtains data about keypresses on the specified device since the
most recent call to this routine, KbQueueStart, KbQueueWait
Clears all scored events, but unscored events that are still being
processed may remain in the queue
pressed: a boolean indicating whether a key has been pressed
firstPress: an array indicating the time that each key was first
pressed since the most recent call to [KbQueueCheck](KbQueueCheck) or [KbQueueStart](KbQueueStart)
firstRelease: an array indicating the time that each key was first
released since the most recent call to [KbQueueCheck](KbQueueCheck) or [KbQueueStart](KbQueueStart)
lastPress: an array indicating the most recent time that each key was
pressed since the most recent call to [KbQueueCheck](KbQueueCheck) or [KbQueueStart](KbQueueStart)
lastRelease: an array indicating the most recent time that each key
was released since the most recent call to [KbQueueCheck](KbQueueCheck) or
[KbQueueStart](KbQueueStart)
For firstPress, firstRelease, lastPress and lastRelease, a time value
of zero indicates that no event for the corresponding key was
detected since the most recent call to [KbQueueCheck](KbQueueCheck) or [KbQueueStart](KbQueueStart)
To identify specific keys, use [KbName](KbName) (e.g., [KbName](KbName)(firstPress)) to
generate a list of the keys for which the events occurred
For compatibility with [KbCheck](KbCheck), any key codes stored in
ptb\_kbcheck\_disabledKeys (see "help [DisableKeysForKbCheck](DisableKeysForKbCheck)"), will
not cause pressed to return as true and will be zeroed out in the
returned arrays. However, a better alternative is to specify a
keyList argument to [KbQueueCreate](KbQueueCreate).
secs=KbQueueWait([deviceNumber])
Waits for any key to be pressed and returns the time of the press.
[KbQueueFlush](KbQueueFlush) should be called immediately prior to this function
(unless the queue has just been created and started) to clear any
prior events.
Note that this command will not respond to any keys that were
inactivated by using the keyList argument to [KbQueueCreate](KbQueueCreate).
Since [KbQueueWait](KbQueueWait) is implemented as a looping call to
[KbQueueCheck](KbQueueCheck), it will not respond to any key codes stored in
the global variable ptb\_kbcheck\_disabledKeys
(see "help [DisableKeysForKbCheck](DisableKeysForKbCheck)")
KbQueueFlush([deviceNumber])
Removes all unprocessed events from the queue and zeros out any
already scored events.
KbQueueRelease([deviceNumber])
Releases queue-associated resources; once called, KbQueueCreate
must be invoked before using any of the other routines
This routine is called automatically at clean-up (e.g., when
'clear mex' is invoked and can be omitted expense of keeping
memory allocated and an additional thread running unnecessarily
Note that any keyboard typing used to invoke KbQueue commands will be
recorded. This would include the release of the carriage return used
to execute KbQueueStart and the keys pressed and released to invoke
KbQueueCheck
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See also: KbQueueCreate, KbQueueStart, KbQueueStop, KbQueueCheck,
KbQueueWait, KbQueueFlush, KbQueueRelease
Psychtoolbox/PsychBasic/KbQueueCreate.m