SFML - Rendering a character when the key is pressed? - c++

Question

So I've got this program that is supposed to imitate a console (with a little coding help from this user):
#include <SFML/Graphics.hpp>
#include <SFML/System.hpp>
#include <SFML/Window.hpp>
sf::Color fontColor;
sf::Font mainFont;
sf::Clock myClock;
bool showCursor = true;
void LoadFont() {
mainFont.loadFromFile("dos.ttf");
fontColor.r = 0;
fontColor.g = 203;
fontColor.b = 0;
}
int main() {
sf::RenderWindow wnd(sf::VideoMode(1366, 768), "SFML Console");
wnd.setSize(sf::Vector2u(1366, 768));
LoadFont();
sf::Text myTxt;
myTxt.setColor(fontColor);
myTxt.setString("System Module:");
myTxt.setFont(mainFont);
myTxt.setCharacterSize(18);
myTxt.setStyle(sf::Text::Regular);
myTxt.setPosition(0, 0);
while(wnd.isOpen()) {
sf::Event myEvent;
while (wnd.pollEvent(myEvent)) {
if (myEvent.type == sf::Event::Closed) {
wnd.close();
}
if (myEvent.type == sf::Event::KeyPressed) {
if (myEvent.key.code == sf::Keyboard::Escape) {
wnd.close();
}
}
}
wnd.clear();
if (myClock.getElapsedTime() >= sf::milliseconds(500)) {
myClock.restart();
showCursor = !showCursor;
if(showCursor == true) {
myTxt.setString("System Module:_");
} else {
myTxt.setString("System Module:");
}
}
wnd.draw(myTxt);
wnd.display();
}
}
I need to be able to let the user type a key on the keyboard, and then render that key on the screen. I'm thinking about using an std::vector of sf::Keyboard::Key, and use a while loop to check what the key is (looping through the std::vector<sf::Keyboard::Key>) without using a whole bunch of if statements, but I don't exactly know how to handle that yet, so I'd like to know if there is an easier way to accomplish my main goal. Suggestions? Comments?
Thank you for your time,
~Mike

Answer 1

SFML has a nice feature for this, sf::Event::TextEntered (tutorial). That is typically what you want and it avoids you to do crazy things to interpret the text entered by the user.
Stock your text entered by adding every character into a sf::String (rather than std::string, it may deal better with sfml's unicode types ~ not sure, but that would need a little check) which is then the perfect type for sf::Text::setString !
Don't hesitate to look at the docs, it has further documentation in every classes' page.
Example:
sf::String userInput;
// ...
while( wnd.pollEvent(event))
{
if(event.type == sf::Event::TextEntered)
{
/* Choose one of the 2 following, and note that the insert method
may be more efficient, as it avoids creating a new string by
concatenating and then copying into userInput.
*/
// userInput += event.text.unicode;
userInput.insert(userInput.getSize(), event.text.unicode);
}
else if(event.type == sf::Event::KeyPressed)
{
if(event.key.code == sf::Keyboard::BackSpace) // delete the last character
{
userInput.erase(userInput.getSize() - 1);
}
}
}