Thank you all for your nice answers !
alternatively, [key] could only output if the currently focused window is in run mode (I guess this is what you had in mind), but I'm not sure if this is actually desirable (as in: to much magic making it confusing; how about windows that do not have a run mode? what about focus-always-under-mouse window managers?)
True that. I didn't think of those consequences ...
my personal quick and dirty solution to this is to use a special key (usually ESC) to switch the output of [key] on and off.
That's what i did so far ...
but tbh, I don't think that [key] is really that useful as an interface in "production"-grade patches.
No, but for "quick and dirty" scenarios ;-)
After i sent my first mail, i realized that there's a quite handy workaraound for my personal needs with the tools at hand:
1.) IEMGUTS/[receivecanvas] in the main patch window. To make sure only this windows gets queried.
2.) Using it's "key" messages to get keyboard values (thus it works like a "local" [key] object)
3.) As an extra safety, use its "editmode" message to open/close a spigot for the "key" messages.
Thank you all
Best
Oliver