HID_Keyboard - Multiple key presses

Projects Programming
1

Hi all,

Complete newbie here, but trying to get my head round everything.

I've just received a Bare Conductive Touchboard, and have just managed to get it working as a keyboard using the code found below.

HID_Keyboard · GitHub.

However what I'm trying to accomplish is for each trigger to actually do 2 key presses at once.

Example E0 would then trigger 'Z + KEY_RIGHT_ARROW'
E1 Would then trigger 'A + KEY_RIGHT_ARROW'

First of all, is this possible by modifying the 'const char keymap'
const char keyMap[12] = {'J', 'U', 'H', 'Y', 'G', 'T', 'F', 'D', 'E', 'S', 'W', 'A'};

If not, is it possible to add a press and release function to this code so on press it would do 'Z' and on release it would do 'KEY_RIGHT_ARROW'?

Sorry for my lack of knowledge on the matter but have been chucked in the deep end at work, and am looking for an easy solution.

Many Thanks

2

That board is not used a lot, I didn't know it.

This is the touch board, made by "Bare Conductive" : Touch Board – Bare Conductive.
Do they have Arduino code on their website? or perhaps schematics?

Sparkfun sells it as well: Bare Conductive Touch Board - DEV-13298 - SparkFun Electronics.
And Sparkfun has a schematic :stuck_out_tongue:
It is a very expensive Arduino Leonardo compatible board with the MPR121 for touch and a VS1053b for sound and a SD memory card socket.

Was it a Christmas gift ? I think that money could be spent in a better way.
When you want to make music with a simple Arduino board, you could try the Mozzi library: Mozzi.

Your link to the gist seems to be a sketch from "Bare Conductive", did you upload that ?
Bare Conductive do have their own Github section.
I suggest to use their MPR121 library, and try a few of the examples that come with it: GitHub - BareConductive/mpr121: Bare Conductive MPR121 Arduino Library

It seems that there are 12 pins, and the examples assume that the pins are 0 to 11. The MPR121.isNewTouch() and the MPR121.isNewRelease() tell if that specific pin was touched or released.

For a quick and dirty solution, you could try the Keyboard.write() to send a key at pressing and at releasing.

Using the Keyboard.press() when pressing a button and a Keyboard.release() when releasing a button is better. You might need those two functions when you want a combination of keys pressed at the same time.

The key 'E' is number 8 ?
You could filter number 8 out of it, and let the rest do the old sketch.

for( int i=firstPin; i<=lastPin; i++)
{
  if( MPR121.isNewTouch( i))
  {
    digitalWrite( LED_BUILTIN, HIGH);

    // test if it is our special number 8 key 'E'
    if( i == 8)
    {
      Keyboard.write( 'Z');  
    }
    else
    {
      Keyboard.press( keyMap[i]);
      if( !holdKey) 
        Keyboard.release( keyMap[i]);
    }
  } 
  else if( MPR121.isNewRelease( i))
  {
    // test if it is our special number 8 key 'E'
    if( i == 8)
    {
      Keyboard.write( KEY_RIGHT_ARROW);  
    }
    else
    {
      if( holdKey) 
        Keyboard.release(keyMap[i]);
    }
    digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, LOW);
  }
}