Interacting with the Keyboard

Almost every control on a form handles its own keyboard input; however, on occasion, you'll want to handle keyboard input directly. For example, you might want to perform an action when the user presses a specific key or releases a specific key. Most controls support three events that you can use to work directly with keyboard input. These are listed in Table 17.4.

Table 17.4. Events That Handle Keyboard Input
Event NameDescription
KeyDownOccurs when a key is pressed down while the control has the focus.
KeyPressOccurs when a key is pressed (the key has been pushed down and then released) while the control has the focus.
KeyUpOccurs when a key is released while the control has the focus.

These events fire in the same ...

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