This is the {{key press}} template primarily designed to illustrate keys and keystrokes on a wikipedia:computer keyboard. With additional parameters, a single template can even illustrate a combination of multiple simultaneous keystrokes. A sequence of keystrokes, on the other hand, need to be demonstrated with separate templates.
Example
- Template:Tc → A
Contents
Keystroke combinations
To illustrate keystroke combinations, just use extra parameters:
- Template:Tc → Alt+P
- Template:Tc → Ctrl+Alt+Del
This template currently handles up to 10 key name parameters, which should be more than enough to accommodate for any possible combination of simultaneous keystrokes. If it gets too many key name parameters it reports the page into Category:Wikipedia keypress template parameter needs fixing. This means we can easily find those pages and fix them, or we can discover if we need to make this template take more parameters.
When you feed several key names to this template, it adds a "+" (or whatever the contents of the optional chain parameter) with no spaces around. This means it won't line wrap. But when you show key combinations for instance in a table then that might cause too wide items. Then instead manually build the key combination with spaces around the "+" so it can line wrap:
- Template:Tc + Template:Tlc + Template:Tlc → Ctrl + Alt + Del
- Template:Tc → Ctrl + Alt + Del
On the other hand, to illustrate Windows wikipedia:Alt codes you might want to use separate templates with no intervening punctuation or space. In most Windows systems in North America and Western Europe, for example, the wikipedia:plus-minus sign (±) can be entered by holding down the Alt key while typing 0177 (with the wikipedia:numeric keypad):
An example of a use case where more than 5 might be used is explaining usage of a macro (keyboard shortcut) created by a third-party application:
- Template:Tc → Ctrl+Alt+⇧ Shift+⊞ Win+≣ Menu+fn+L
Wikilinks
If there is an article about the key you can wikilink the key's name like any other wiki text. Like this:
If you are wikilinking the keys, please ensure that you are piping to the correct page (e.g. [[Control key|Ctrl]] instead of [[Ctrl]], which leads to a disambiguation page).
Wiki markup characters
Some wiki markup character, like the wikipedia:pipe symbol, the wikipedia:semicolon and the wikipedia:equals sign, need to be entered using the {{!}}, {{;}} and {{=}} templates or as an wikipedia:HTML entity |, ;, = respectively:
- Template:Tc → |
- Template:Tc → |
- Template:Tc → ;
- Template:Tc → ;
- Template:Tc → =
- Template:Tc → =
However, if the characters are marked as wikilinks, they can be entered as such:
Most markup characters also have aliases:
- Template:Tc → |
- Template:Tc → ;
- Template:Tc → =
- Template:Tc → :
- Template:Tc → *
- Template:Tc → #
Key symbols
Some key names have a fitting wikipedia:Unicode character. This template automatically adds such "icons" to the following key names among others.
- Template:Tc → ⇧ Shift
- Template:Tc → Tab ↹
- Template:Tc → ↵ Enter
- Template:Tc → ⌥ Option
- Template:Tc → ⌥ Opt
- Template:Tc → ⌘ Command
- Template:Tc → ⌘ Cmd
- Template:Tc → ⇪ Caps Lock
- Template:Tc → Scroll Lock
- Template:Tc → ↑
- Template:Tc → ↓
- Template:Tc → ←
- Template:Tc → →
There are no characters for the wikipedia:Windows key and wikipedia:Menu key. So this template shows approximate characters for them, namely the 'SQUARED PLUS' and 'STRICTLY EQUIVALENT TO' from the wikipedia:Mathematical Operators block:
- Template:Tc → ⊞ Win
- Template:Tc → ≣ Menu
Video games
Video game controllers often have specialized input labels that do not map easily. The following are mappings for various game consoles and input features.
Directional input
The following should only be used when the input sequence uses something other than the primary input or mixes input between directional devices.
- Template:Tc → L↓
- Template:Tc → C←
- Template:Tc → R↑
Stick specific diagonals are also supported:
- Template:Tc → L↖
- Template:Tc → C↘
- Template:Tc → R↗
PlayStation
- Template:Tc → ×
- Template:Tc → ○
- Template:Tc → △
- Template:Tc → □
Technical details
This template calls {{key press/core}}, which holds the code that otherwise would be repeated several times in {{key press}}, thus simplifying the code.
See also
- {{Button}}, which produces a similar visual effect but without the semantic markup (e.g. sample text).