Recognising key sequence

[jwh]

Good evening.

I need my MDI based application to respond to a certain sequance of keystrokes, no matter which child form/control has the focus.
The sequence of keys I need to recongnise is "%CLK"

Does anybody have any suggestions where I could start on this one as I have no idea!

 

[Anti-Rich]

hm, maybe you could add an event/event handler to the parent form, so it will catch it no matter what. alternatively what about creating a module/class (what is the EXACT difference between the two, and what are disadvantages/advantages of each) that has the event handler in it, so it will always be listening for it.

the only other option i can think of would be to create the code to handle the combination in each and every form in your project.

hope that helps

regards

adam

 

[jmcilhinney]

Set the KeyPreview property of your parent form to True and add code like this:

Private keySequence As String

Private Sub Form1_KeyPress(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.KeyPressEventArgs) Handles Me.KeyPress
    If e.KeyChar = "%"c Then
        'Record that the first key was detected.
        Me.keySequence = "%"
    ElseIf Char.ToLower(e.KeyChar) = "c"c AndAlso Me.keySequence = "%" Then
        'Record that the second key was detected.
        Me.keySequence = "%c"
    ElseIf Char.ToLower(e.KeyChar) = "l"c AndAlso Me.keySequence = "%c" Then
        'Record that the third key was detected.
        Me.keySequence = "%cl"
    ElseIf Char.ToLower(e.KeyChar) = "k"c AndAlso Me.keySequence = "%cl" Then
        'Reset the key sequence.
        Me.keySequence = String.Empty

        'Announce that the entire sequence was detected.
        MessageBox.Show("Key sequence %CLK detected.")
    Else
        'The key is not part of the sequence so reset.
        Me.keySequence = String.Empty
    End If
End Sub

 

[jwh]

That sorted the problem nicely - thanks!