Trying to accept the keyboard input 'R' alone or along side any other amount of keyboard inputs using either keyboard or pygame modules

Question

import keyboard
import pygame
import mouse
import time

def press_X():
    time.sleep(0.2)
    keyboard.press('x')
    time.sleep(0.6)
    keyboard.release('x')
    print('Command Executed - press_X')

#SA_R_X V_1.0

#------------------------------------------
    
while True:
    try:
        keyboard.add_hotkey('r', press_X)
        time.sleep(0.5)
        break
    except:
        keyboard.add_hotkey('r', press_X)
        time.sleep(0.5)
        break

the problem is the code cannot detect if 'r' is pressed when i am holding 'w' and/or 'space'... (well any key really)

I tried to use a try and except to handle a combination of any key + 'r'. But it did not work. All I need is for the code to be able to detect an 'r' input even if I am pressing/ holding another key at the same time. Then after this the code waits 0.2 seconds before holding down the 'x' key for 0.6 seconds and releasing. Any help is appreciated and it would be very helpful if you included a short explanation on where I went wrong and how you fixed it.

Answer 1

The documentation for this module can be found here. This is where all relevant information can be found.

The best way to do this, from my understanding, is to use an alternative function. If you want the program to continue to run, even though the key has not been pressed, then I suggest using the keyboard.on_press_key() function. This would mean that the rest of your program could still run, and your press_X() function could be run as a callback. Here is an example of how this code could be implemented.

import keyboard
import pygame
import mouse
import time

class App:
    running = True

def press_X():
    time.sleep(0.2)
    keyboard.press('x')
    time.sleep(0.6)
    keyboard.release('x')
    print('Command Executed - press_X')
    App.running = False

#SA_R_X V_1.0

#------------------------------------------
    
keyboard.on_press_key('r', lambda x: press_X()) ## Adds an event listener for the r key

## This will stop execution if there is no code after this point

If you want it to stop the program and wait for the r key to be pressed, then you could use keyboard.wait(). This will basically pause your program until the key is pressed, after which your function would be run. For example, to replace the keyboard.on_press_key('r', lambda x: press_X()):

keyboard.wait('r')
press_X()

From my understanding, keyboard.add_hotkey() does not work in your situation because it is looking for an exact combination of keys being pressed, such as Ctrl+C, and will only go if only the keys in the hotkey are pressed.

I hope this helps, good luck!