Numpad key bind detection in Algodoo

[titanic4]

My suggestion is to add to Algodoo special function, which checks scene for usage of numpad keys in hinges(forward, backward, brake).

After detecting such bindings in scene Algodoo will warn user whenever scene may be incompatible with laptop's keyboard.

Warning would look like this:"<middle, red>Warning\n<justified, white>This scene may be incompatible with laptop keyboard.\nIf your laptop keyboard doesn't have NumLock key, get standard USB keyboard with separate numpad section(or external usb numpad if you want) and plug it in to free USB port.\n Tip: you can hold Fn key(if you have emulated numpad on your laptop's keyboard), it'll temporarily turn on numpad as long as you hold the Fn key. Buttons: OK"

Make sure you set utf-8 coding in your browser or you'll get garbled text instead of Polish diacritics in next example.

Polish translation would look like this:"<middle, red>Ostrzeżenie\n<justified, white>Ta scena może być niekompatybilna z klawiaturą laptopa.\nJeśli klawiatura Twojego laptopa nie ma klawisza "NumLock" to musisz zaopatrzyć się w zwykłą klawiaturę z osobną sekcją klawiatury numerycznej(lub zewnętrzną klawiaturę numeryczną USB jeśli wolisz) i podłącz ją do wolnego gniazda USB.\nRada: Możesz przytrzymać klawisz Fn(o ile masz emulowaną klawiaturę numeryczną w klawiaturze laptopa) by tymczasowo włączyć klawiaturę numeryczną. Buttons: OK"

Where \n is the new line, between <> here's style used in the text, after word "Buttons:" there are buttons in the dialog window.

What do you think about it?

[electronicboy]

Personally, I think this isn't a good idea, and only adds a larger load time as algodoo would have to iterate through every single object and check if the string doesn't match anything in a predefined array, as with the way algodoo actually processes scene loading as of now, it's practically impossible to add without major, or somewhat hacky, changes.

More and more laptops are now coming with a proper numpad in them, as to take advantage of the extra space from a wide-screen, so this issue is slowly becoming less of an issue now, aswell. Also, the number of scenes that use the numpad are also dropping too, I believe the devs need to spend more time making more attractive features, than spending time adding features only useful for a small amount of users.

If somebody really wanted too, I think it would be better to create a wrapper application that will scan the file for the strings indicating the use of a num-pad key, and create a pop-up box alerting the user of the issue. Shamefully, I only know a tiny PHP and Bash scripting, so I'm unable to do this as I can't create native code, nor can I create something that will run in windows.