ShortcutService - Easily create contextual keyboard shortcuts

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I’ve recently noticed a rather strange hole within the Roblox community, despite so many plugins and games having shortcuts, there is no resource (that I found) to enable creation of them. While this would be incredibly helpful as an engine feature (perhaps one that builds off of ContextActionService), until that time comes, I present my solution:

ShortcutService

ShortcutService is a small, easy-to-use custom service that follows in ContextActionService’s footsteps, enabling the creation of contextual keyboard shortcuts.

Usage Example:

local ShortcutService = require(script.ShortcutService)

ShortcutService:Bind(
    "Print Hi",
    function()
        print("Hi!")
    end,
    Enum.KeyCode.LeftControl,Enum.KeyCode.M
)


ShortcutService:Activate()
Above is one of many ways to bind a shortcut (but is also the simplest)

You can also do the following:

local ShortcutService = require(script.ShortcutService)

ShortcutService:CreateShortcut("Print Hi",Enum.KeyCode.LeftControl,Enum.KeyCode.M)
ShortcutService:BindShortcutHandler("Print Hi",function()
	print("Hi!")
end)
ShortcutService:ActivateShortcut("Print Hi")

ShortcutService:Activate()

Or

local ShortcutService = require(script.ShortcutService)

ShortcutService:CreateShortcut("Print Hi",Enum.KeyCode.LeftControl,Enum.KeyCode.M)
ShortcutService:BindShortcut("Print Hi",function()
	print("Hi!")
end)

ShortcutService:Activate()

Now, some notes:

  • It requires that only the keys within the shortcut to be active in order to trigger
  • It does not support multiple shortcuts for the same action, but this functionality can be achieved by binding multiple shortcuts to the same function
  • It does not have a begin, change, end state like ContextActionService does
  • It does not prevent default shortcuts from occurring
  • No wiki is available (currently), I hope that the function descriptions can guide you well enough, but if you have questions, don’t be afraid to ask

With that said, I hope this helps! If you think you can make it better (you probably can), send a pull request on the github!

3 Likes
2

really cool! i’ll try it out and give feedback.

1 Like
3

Update:

  • Now using ContextActionService to prevent inputs while a shortcut is being processed (ctrl+w won’t walk the player forward)
  • Handler functions are now wrapped into a coroutine, allowing for inputs to be restored as soon as possible, and preventing a yieldable handler from stopping restoration of inputs

Github and model code has been updated as well, but anyone who downloaded it before this update will have to download it again.

Open to questions and concerns as always, until then, enjoy!