Adding Keyboard and Mouse Interaction

As the Rive GameKit is built on top of Flutter, it’s possible to add a wide range of peripheral inputs. This tutorial demonstrates how to add keyboard and mouse interaction to your games.

There are a number of commonly used Flutter widgets that handle keyboard and mouse input:

1. Focus and FocusNode: This is used to manage focus on a widget. It provides callbacks for when the widget gains or loses focus, which can be useful for handling keyboard input.

2. MouseRegion: This widget provides callbacks for handling mouse events, such as hovering, entering, and leaving.

3. Listener: A widget that calls callbacks in response to common pointer events.

4. Shortcuts: This widget can be used to define keyboard shortcuts for specific actions in your app. It provides callbacks for when a shortcut is triggered.

5. RawKeyboardListener: This widget listens for raw keyboard events, such as key presses, and provides callbacks for handling those events.

6. GestureDetector: This widget can handle a variety of mouse and touch events, including clicks, double-clicks, scrolling, panning, etc.

7. MouseTracker: This widget tracks the relationship between mouse devices and annotations and triggers mouse events and cursor changes accordingly.

Let’s explore the input mechanism for the Centaur Game.

Rive GameKit - Keyboard and Mouse control

This game supports the following controls:

• Keyboard input - move the player left and right

• Mouse pointer location - the direction the player should point at

• Mouse scroll - zoom in and out

• Mouse click - fire arrow

Below is an excerpt from the game code that handles input:

...

return Focus(
  focusNode: FocusNode(
    canRequestFocus: true,
    onKeyEvent: (node, event) {
      if (event is KeyRepeatEvent) {
        return KeyEventResult.handled;
      }
      double speed = 0;
      if (event is KeyDownEvent) {
        speed = 1;
      } else if (event is KeyUpEvent) {
        speed = -1;
      }
      if (event.logicalKey == LogicalKeyboardKey.keyA) {
        _centaurPainter!.move -= speed;
      } else if (event.logicalKey ==
          LogicalKeyboardKey.keyD) {
        _centaurPainter!.move += speed;
      }
      return KeyEventResult.handled;
    },
  )..requestFocus(),
  child: MouseRegion(
    onHover: (event) => _centaurPainter!.aimAt(
      event.localPosition * window.devicePixelRatio,
    ),
    child: Listener(
      behavior: HitTestBehavior.opaque,
      onPointerDown: _centaurPainter!.pointerDown,
      onPointerMove: (event) => _centaurPainter!.aimAt(
        event.localPosition * window.devicePixelRatio,
      ),
      onPointerSignal: (event) {
        if (event is PointerScrollEvent) {
          _centaurPainter!.zoom(event.scrollDelta.dy / 1000);
        }
      },
      child: _renderTexture.widget(_centaurPainter!),
    ),
  ),
),

...

The input mechanisms can be broken down as follows:

1. Focus and FocusNode are responsible for keyboard input - keyA and keyB move left and right, respectively. The event argument provides additional information, such as KeyRepeatEvent, KeyDownEvent, and more.

2. FocusNode ensures the Focus widget receives keyboard focus by calling requestFocus.

3. The MouseRegion is used to get the mouse position on screen which determines where the character is aiming at. This is only triggered by a mouse cursor, not touch events on mobile.

4. The Listener is responsible for receiving pointer events. These pointer events can also be touch events (on mobile or touch-supported devices).

   1. onPointerDown: on touch or on click

   2. onPointerMove: called when a pointer is on screen and moving, for example when moving your finger or mouse after touching/clicking

   3. onPointerSignal: additional pointer events, for example detecting scroll events.

      HitTestBehavior.opaque: ensures that opaque targets can be hit by hit tests, which enables the drawable area for the Rive RenderTexture to be hit.

Conclusion

You’re free to use any input mechanisms that Flutter supports. For additional examples, see:

• Joel Game

• Goblin Slayer Game