How to capture function keys when the current cell is in active edit mode in WinForms GridControl?

Handle the control key

When the grid cell is not actively edited, the grid itself gets these keystrokes. In this case, you can use event handlers like grid.CurrentCellKeyDown and grid.KeyDown to catch the keys. When the current cell is actively being edited, the grid does not automatically catch these keys.

Solution

When the current cell is actively being edited, you can use the grid.CurrentCellControlKeyMessage to catch the function keys.

//subscribe to the event
this.gridDataBoundGrid1.CurrentCellControlKeyMessage += new    GridCurrentCellControlKeyMessageEventHandler(grid_CurrentCellControlKeyMessage);

private void grid_CurrentCellControlKeyMessage(object sender, GridCurrentCellControlKeyMessageEventArgs e)
{
   Keys keyCode = (Keys)((int)e.Msg.WParam) & Keys.KeyCode;

   //To view the result in output screen.
   Console.WriteLine(keyCode);
   Console.WriteLine(e.Msg);

   //To display the key pressed.
   MessageBox.Show(keyCode.ToString() + " is pressed");
}

'subscribe to the event
AddHandler Me.gridDataBoundGrid1.CurrentCellControlKeyMessage, AddressOf grid_CurrentCellControlKeyMessage

Private Sub grid_CurrentCellControlKeyMessage(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As GridCurrentCellControlKeyMessageEventArgs)
   Dim keyCode As Keys = CType(CInt(Fix(e.Msg.WParam)), Keys) And Keys.KeyCode

   'To view the result in output screen.
   Console.WriteLine(keyCode)
   Console.WriteLine(e.Msg)

   'To display the key pressed.
   MessageBox.Show(keyCode.ToString() & " is pressed")
End Sub

Figure 1: control key handled in cell edit mode.

Samples:

C#: FunctionKeyCapture-C#.

VB: FunctionKeyCapture-VB.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed learning about how to capture function keys when the current cell is in active edit mode in WinForms GridControl.

You can refer to our WinForms GridControl feature tour page to know about its other groundbreaking feature representations and WinForms GridControl documentation, and how to quickly get started for configuration specifications.

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