Key pressed - event generated

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0.00/5 (No votes)

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.NET3.5

VS2008

How I can get an event to be generated whenever the user presses a key(even if my current application is not in focus)? I actually wish to execute some code according to the keys pressed by the user. My application will be running in back end. Looking forward to any help.

Posted 1-Jan-13 5:36am

Ritwesh

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Abhinav S 1-Jan-13 11:45am

And why do you want to do this?

Ritwesh 1-Jan-13 11:54am

I actually want to develop an application by which I can perform many actions even when the user just presses a few keys even without opening any application as such and such that my application can trace any key pressed even for other applications. I hope I was able to express myself. So, can it be done as I wish it to be? Plz... help

3 solutions

Solution 2

You should understand that "focus" always means "keyboard focus" and nothing else. It means, only the control which has focus receives input events when the user presses key on a keyboard.

Solution 1 explains how you can trigger some events via a keyboard Windows Hook, but that would be a real abuse of normal UI development. Using such hooks can be justified only for some special cases. For example, it could be recording of keyboard macro, system-global utilities and the like. If this is just the separate UI application which does not have a task of intervention into the behavior of other processes, you should rather review your UI design.

—SA

Posted 1-Jan-13 7:24am

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov

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Thomas Daniels 1-Jan-13 13:28pm

Good answer, +5!

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 1-Jan-13 13:35pm

Thank you. Happy New Year!
—SA

Solution 3

See Global Shortcuts in WinForms and WPF[^]

Posted 1-Jan-13 8:02am

Akinmade Bond

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Thomas Daniels · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-01T06:10:00

Solution 1

Hi,

Use Keyboard Hooks:
A Simple C# Global Low Level Keyboard Hook[^]
Using Hooks from C#[^]

Posted 1-Jan-13 6:10am

Thomas Daniels

Comments

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 1-Jan-13 13:26pm

I voted 5, because if the control is out of focus, this is the only way, and because this is valuable information.

At the same time, I added my own solution where I explained some background and recommended UI design review. Your solution is of course credited.

—SA

Thomas Daniels 1-Jan-13 13:27pm

Thank you!