OSShortcut

Replicate Operating System key presses and release into Godot.

Currently working on:

• Linux
  • ✔️ X11
  • ❌ Wayland
• ✔️ Windows
• ❌ MacOS

Installation

• Download latest release
• Extract addons directory from ZIP
• Move addons directory to your project directory
  • If your project already have an addons directory, copy addons/os_shortcut to your project addons
• Open Godot project
• Go to Project > Project Settings... > Plugins
  • You should be seeing OSShortcut plugin there, otherwise something was done wrong
• Check Enable in OSShortcut plugin
• Restart Godot

Usage

• Go to Project > Project Settings... > Globals
• Check Enable in OSShortcut Global
• Now Godot will receive key press/release when your window is not focused

WARNING: Some Controls process inputs like key presses/releases. For example, Button can be pressed when you press ENTER key. To avoid this controls being triggered when the user change windows, you can do:

func _ready() -> void:
    # When the user leave the application (like clicking a third-party application window),
    # OSShortcut will move the focus to the target Control.
    OSShortcut.target_focus = c

Why

(11-fev-2025) Godot doesn't include any way to listen for key inputs when your window is not focus (#7713).
Which makes sense, games don't have reason to listen for keystrokes, but I do like to use Godot for making GUI tools.

Right now, I am making a PNGTuber and it's very important being able to switch between states in this type of tool.

References

• OSListener, GDExtension to listen key presses/releases