Should F1 - F12 key be used in games?

A lot of programs and games uses F1 - F12 keys for user interactions so I thought it would be a good idea to use them for my game as well but I’m not sure if that’s the best idea because Roblox is full of surprises there might be some negative consequences I’m not aware of so I thought I should ask the community.

I would like to know your thoughts on this topic

F1 - F12 keys
  • should be used in Roblox games
  • should NOT be used in Roblox games

0 voters

nvm not F9 - F12 as @GamersInternational pointed out:

2 Likes

Should be used in Roblox games… with strings attached. Make sure a keybind is used if you plan on doing this. Maybe if you hold ctrl while pushing, you can ensure that no accidental mishaps are executed.

You can use Enum.KeyCode.[F1 - F12] to detect the user if they pressed the key but half those keys are already reserved by the Roblox client

You can get around this by using the useless keys that no one uses (NumPads for example) because like I said Roblox has already has taken those keys but I would like to use them for shortcuts

1 Like

No, I do not believe it should be used.

For starters, the F9, F11 and F12 keys are probably going to get overrided by other Roblox functions (DevConsole, Full Screen, Video Recording).

And also, on most computers, you need to press the Fn key whilst pressing the function button in order to do an action.

4 Likes

you can disable that in the BIOS / UEFI or there might be a FN lock key for example fn + esc will toggle FN lock.

I understand your point though, not a lot of people know how to configure that :upside_down_face:

I think I might try using the numpad though but then smaller laptops / keyboards don’t have them…

1 Like

I think it would be interesting to see this. I think the F1-F12 keys shouldn’t be used for in-game actions (movement, spellcasting, ect.), but rather for things like adjusting brightness, motion blur, and so on - like hotkeys for giving quick access for toggling options. And as others have said, make sure the F keys that you use aren’t going to accidentally toggle something else as well. Overall, pretty interesting idea - I think it’d be worth trying.

1 Like

You probably won’t find a numpad on anything that is less than 15 inches. I think a lot of laptops do not have one now (I’m basically relying on my numpad all the time now to type numbers)

Unless you have a settings menu for keybinds, I’d entirely discourage using those keys. Even though F1-F8 do not have a function alone, pressing them together with shift will open certain debug GUIs. To add to that, it isn’t rare for Roblox to add and remove debug features, so you should expect game breaking bugs.

If you want to add that I’d just recommend using normal number keys. And if you want to add special menus and stuff add some other key such as “m” for example. Most F keys have some purpose already and they’d get overrided

F1 - F8 are binded to things, you just have to press ctrl or shift I think, you can also check keys that are binded in the dev console

That is what I was talking about. Pressing F1-F8 will not result anything without holding shift at the same time. Though Roblox can decide to change this at any point. This is only valid in-game. You don’t need to hold shift in Studio, making it harder to debug.