Keyboard Data

When using DirectInput, consider the keyboard not as a text input device but as a game pad with many buttons. When your application requires text input, do not use DirectInput methods. It is far easier to retrieve the data from the normal Windows messages, which enable you take advantage of services such as character repeat and translation of physical keys to virtual keys. This is particularly important for languages other than English, which can require special translations of key presses.

To set up the keyboard device for data retrieval, you must first call the IDirectInputDevice8::SetDataFormat method with the c_dfDIKeyboard global variable as the parameter. (See Device Data Formats.)

The following sections give more information about obtaining and interpreting keyboard data:

• Buffered Keyboard Data

• Checking for Lost Keyboard Input

• Immediate Keyboard Data

• Interpreting Keyboard Data