User keyboard input without halting the program

[Zhi]

Hi all,

I am wondering how to get a string input from the keyboard without halting the program. The viz.input pops out an dialog and halts the program. The vizinfo box seems unable to get keyboard input at all. Is there a simple way in Vizard or Python to get a string input from the keyboard, similar to the "gets()" function in C language. While the user inputting the string, there is no dialog box popping out and no halting of the program.

Zhi

[farshizzo]

You should be able to call the viz.input command in a separate thread to prevent it from halting the main graphics loop. Here is a sample:

import viz
import vizact
import viztask
viz.go()

model = viz.add('logo.ive',pos=(0,1,4))
model.addAction(vizact.spin(0,1,0,90))

def GetInputTask():

	d = viz.Data()
	yield viztask.waitDirector(viz.input,'Enter string:',data=d)

	print d.returnValue

viztask.schedule(GetInputTask())

You could also add a textbox to the vizinfo box to get keyboard input.

If you ever upgrade to Vizard 4.0, it comes with a new vizhtml module that allows you to collect input from arbitrary HTML forms.

[Zhi]

Thank you for your suggestions.