Question

Is there a better way to have a keydown handler for many controls on a busy form? (Using the form handler alone doesn’t work in some cases.)

Private Sub rText_KeyDown(ByVal Sender As Object, ByVal e As KeyEventArgs) Handles rText0.KeyDown, txTaxon.KeyDown, txCommon.KeyDown, _
  txConfidence.KeyDown, txDate.KeyDown, txDateAdded.KeyDown, txFileName.KeyDown, txGPS.KeyDown, txRating.KeyDown, _
  txConfidence.KeyDown, txQuality.KeyDown, txRemarks.KeyDown, txKeyWords.KeyDown, txOriginalPath.KeyDown, txDateAdded.KeyDown, _
  txLink.KeyDown, chkLink.KeyDown, rview.KeyDown, cmdNext.KeyDown, tvTaxon.KeyDown, Me.KeyDown, _
  cmdTaxon.KeyDown
Call globalkey(e)
End Sub

Answer 1

I am a C# programmer, and hence wont be able to provide a working solutions (as in vb.net code).

I think that you can get this working by doing following things.

1. Write up a method which AddHandlers for your respective controls, if and only if, they have specific value set to a property (details in step #2 below)
2. All controls, to which you want a common handler to be attached, set their Tag property to a unique value, for example : "KeyDown". I would recommend use of Enum though in this case, instead of string
3. Now, in your Form constructor, after InitializeComponent call, call the method you wrote in #1 above. This will attach handlers to all desired controls.
4. If you have multiple forms having this requirement, you can add this functionality to a main form, which acts like a parent for all others (inheritance)

Hope I am clear enough and this helps.