Question

I am creating a small game, the game is printed onto a panel on a windows form. Now i want to capture the keydown event to see if its the arrow keys that has been pressed, the problem however is that i can’t seem to capture it.

Let me explain, on the form i have 4 buttons and various other controls and if the user for instance press one of the buttons (to trigger a game event) then the button has focus and i can’t capture the movements with the arrow keys.

I tried something like

private void KeyDown(KeyEventArgs e)
    {
        if (e.KeyCode == Keys.Left)
        {
            game.MovePlayer(DonutWarsLibrary.GameObjects.Direction.E);
            game.DrawObjects(panel1.CreateGraphics());
        }
        else if (e.KeyCode == Keys.Right)
        {
            game.MovePlayer(DonutWarsLibrary.GameObjects.Direction.W);
            game.DrawObjects(panel1.CreateGraphics());
        }
        else if (e.KeyCode == Keys.Up)
        {
            game.MovePlayer(DonutWarsLibrary.GameObjects.Direction.N);
            game.DrawObjects(panel1.CreateGraphics());
        }
        else if (e.KeyCode == Keys.Down)
        {
            game.MovePlayer(DonutWarsLibrary.GameObjects.Direction.S);
            game.DrawObjects(panel1.CreateGraphics());
        }
    }

and then when the form key down event was pressed, i used this

private void MainForm_KeyDown(object sender, KeyEventArgs e)
    {
        KeyDown(e);
    }

I also added keydown for the buttons and the various other controls on the windows form, but i am not getting any response back. I have setup a breakpoint inside the function to see if it’s being called, but that breakpoint never triggers?

Any ideas?

The most optimal was to have a general KeyDown event that triggers (regardless of what control that currently has focus) and then calls the KeyDown method.

Answer 1

---

Override IsInputKey behaviour

---

You must override the IsInputKey behavior to inform that you want the Right Arrow key to be treated as an InputKey and not as a special behavior key.
For that you must override the method for each of your controls.
I would advise you to create your won Buttons, let’s say MyButton

The class below creates a custom Button that overrides the IsInputKey method so that the right arrow key is not treated as a special key. From there you can easily make it for the other arrow keys or anything else.

    public partial class MyButton : Button
    {
        protected override bool IsInputKey(Keys keyData)
        {
            if (keyData == Keys.Right)
            {
                return true;
            }
            else
            {
                return base.IsInputKey(keyData);
            }
        }
    }

---

Afterwards, you can treat your keyDown event event in each different Button or in the form itself:

In the Buttons’ KeyDown Method try to set these properties:

private void myButton1_KeyDown(object sender, KeyEventArgs e)
{
  e.Handled = true;
  //DoSomething();
}

— OR —

handle the common behaviour in the form: (do not set e.Handled = true; in the buttons)

private void Form1_KeyDown(object sender, KeyEventArgs e)
{
    //DoSomething();
}