C# – How to capture Keys.F1 regardless of the focused control on a form

ckeydownkeyeventnetwinforms

I used KeyDown event and some simple code like if (e.KeyCode == Keys.F1) to capture F1 is pressed on a form BUT if there are some text boxes on the form or if there are some spreadsheets with Dock Fill on the form then the code above gets useless and does nothing. But I want to do something when user presses F1 on this form. so how do we capture a specific keydown event like F1 on the whole form..and I do not want to go to the route that capture the KeyDown of all other controls on the form and pass them to the Form for processing. is there any cleaner way to do this?

Best Answer

Yes, indeed there is. The correct way for the form to handle key events regardless of the control that currently has the input focus is to override the ProcessCmdKey method of your form class:

protected override bool ProcessCmdKey(ref Message msg, Keys keyData)
{
    if (keyData == Keys.F1)
    {
        MessageBox.Show("You pressed the F1 key");
        return true;    // indicate that you handled this keystroke
    }

    // Call the base class
    return base.ProcessCmdKey(ref msg, keyData);
}

You return true to indicate that you handled the keystroke and don't want it to be passed on to other controls. If you do want it to be passed on to the event handlers for other controls, simply return false.

And you're best off ignoring the KeyPreview property. That's an anachronism from the VB 6 days and not really the preferred way of doing this in the .NET world. Further reading: Disadvantage of setting Form.KeyPreview = true?

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C# – How to get the path of the assembly the code is in

I've defined the following property as we use this often in unit testing.

public static string AssemblyDirectory
{
    get
    {
        string codeBase = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase;
        UriBuilder uri = new UriBuilder(codeBase);
        string path = Uri.UnescapeDataString(uri.Path);
        return Path.GetDirectoryName(path);
    }
}

The Assembly.Location property sometimes gives you some funny results when using NUnit (where assemblies run from a temporary folder), so I prefer to use CodeBase which gives you the path in URI format, then UriBuild.UnescapeDataString removes the File:// at the beginning, and GetDirectoryName changes it to the normal windows format.

C# – Cross-thread operation not valid: Control accessed from a thread other than the thread it was created on

As per Prerak K's update comment (since deleted):

I guess I have not presented the question properly.

Situation is this: I want to load data into a global variable based on the value of a control. I don't want to change the value of a control from the child thread. I'm not going to do it ever from a child thread.

So only accessing the value so that corresponding data can be fetched from the database.

The solution you want then should look like:

UserContrl1_LOadDataMethod()
{
    string name = "";
    if(textbox1.InvokeRequired)
    {
        textbox1.Invoke(new MethodInvoker(delegate { name = textbox1.text; }));
    }
    if(name == "MyName")
    {
        // do whatever
    }
}

Do your serious processing in the separate thread before you attempt to switch back to the control's thread. For example:

UserContrl1_LOadDataMethod()
{
    if(textbox1.text=="MyName") //<<======Now it wont give exception**
    {
        //Load data correspondin to "MyName"
        //Populate a globale variable List<string> which will be
        //bound to grid at some later stage
        if(InvokeRequired)
        {
            // after we've done all the processing, 
            this.Invoke(new MethodInvoker(delegate {
                // load the control with the appropriate data
            }));
            return;
        }
    }
}

Best Answer

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