Node.js Raw Mode with Keystrokes

By  on  

I find the stuff that people are doing with Node.js incredibly interesting.  You here about people using Node.js to control drones, Arduinos, and a host of other devices.  I took advantage of Node.js to create a Roku Remote, a project that was fun and easier than I thought it would be.  There was one piece of this experiment that was difficult, however:  listening for keystrokes within the same shell that executed the script.

The process for using the remote is as follows:

  1. Execute the script to connect to your Roku:  node remote
  2. In the same shell, use arrow keys and hot keys to navigate the Roku
  3. Press CONTROL+C to kill the script

The following JavaScript code is what I needed to use to both listen for keystrokes within the same shell once the script had been started:

// Readline lets us tap into the process events
const readline = require('readline');

// Allows us to listen for events from stdin
readline.emitKeypressEvents(process.stdin);

// Raw mode gets rid of standard keypress events and other
// functionality Node.js adds by default
process.stdin.setRawMode(true);


// Start the keypress listener for the process
process.stdin.on('keypress', (str, key) => {

    // "Raw" mode so we must do our own kill switch
    if(key.sequence === '\u0003') {
        process.exit();
    }

    // User has triggered a keypress, now do whatever we want!
    // ...

});

The code above turns your Node.js script into an active wire for listening to keypress events.  With my Roku Remote, I pass arrow and letter keypress events directly to the Roku via a REST API (full code here).  I love that Node.js made this so easy -- another reason JavaScript always wins!

Recent Features

  • By
    7 Essential JavaScript Functions

    I remember the early days of JavaScript where you needed a simple function for just about everything because the browser vendors implemented features differently, and not just edge features, basic features, like addEventListener and attachEvent.  Times have changed but there are still a few functions each developer should...

  • By
    Regular Expressions for the Rest of Us

    Sooner or later you'll run across a regular expression. With their cryptic syntax, confusing documentation and massive learning curve, most developers settle for copying and pasting them from StackOverflow and hoping they work. But what if you could decode regular expressions and harness their power? In...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Page Visibility API

    One event that's always been lacking within the document is a signal for when the user is looking at a given tab, or another tab. When does the user switch off our site to look at something else? When do they come back?

  • By
    Making the Firefox Logo from HTML

    When each new t-shirt means staving off laundry for yet another day, swag quickly becomes the most coveted perk at any tech company. Mozilla WebDev had pretty much everything going for it: brilliant people, interesting problems, awesome office. Everything except a t-shirt. That had to change. The basic...

Discussion

  1. Haldun

    I like a lot that you are writing about messing with Iot using nodejs! Looking forward to see more! Thanks!

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!