How to add Keydown under all circumstances

[Reapism]

In order for me to avoid writing the

If e.keycode = keys.control + keys.B then me.show()

and writing that under ever keydown event. May I just have it under form.activated or how can it work whenever the form is activated on the screen. I know we show put it under the Form1.Activated but how will I do that. e.keycode isnt valid under that field then what is thanks so much D:

[Shaggy Hiker]

Set the KeyPreview property of the Form to True, then you can handle just the Form keydown events and get any keydowns for any of the controls, as well. That may be all you are looking for.

[dday9]

The syntax is wrong as well, you should avoid + and use e.Control for the control key:

If e.Control AndAlso e.KeyCode = Keys.B Then
    'Code
End If

[Reapism]

I don't believe the syntax was wrong I was merely asking how does a key event control all controls essentially like

Under the Textbox_keydown event

        If e.KeyCode = Keys.Control + Keys.Z Then
            TxtNavigate.Undo()
        End If
' There is no problem with that code..

[dday9]

That code will perform, yes. However, I think you should use the method I showed above. As for the key event being fired every time, as Shaggy suggested you would set form's keypreview to true. You can set it in design time under the form's properties or in code like this:

Me.KeyPreview = True

that would more likely go in the Form's load event. Then in the form's keydown event you would call the:

If e.Control AndAlso e.KeyCode = Keys.Z Then

End If

furthermore, if you wanted the selected textbox that's on the form to undo, then you would iterate through all of the textbox's in Me.Controls and check if the textbox is focused or not. The end result should look something like this:

Option Strict On
Option Explicit On

Public Class Form1

    Private Sub Form1_KeyDown(sender As Object, e As System.Windows.Forms.KeyEventArgs) Handles Me.KeyDown
        If e.Control AndAlso e.KeyCode = Keys.Z Then
            For Each txtbox As TextBox In Me.Controls.OfType(Of TextBox)()
                If txtbox.Focused Then
                    txtbox.Undo()
                End If
            Next
        End If
    End Sub

    Private Sub Form1_Load(sender As System.Object, e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
        Me.KeyPreview = True
    End Sub
End Class

[Shaggy Hiker]

The + is a risky operator. How it works depends on a few factors. If you have Option Strict ON, as you should, the behavior should always be predictable, but if you have Option Strict OFF, the behavior becomes situational. Aside from that AndAlso is going to have better performance in all circumstances, regardless of whether + works as you want it to. The reason for this is that AndAlso allows the code to short-circuit the whole test. + will concatenate things, which is not fast to begin with, but both pieces have to be evaluated. The way dday wrote it, if e.Control is false, it doesn't even bother evaluating the rest of the condition, since the truth of the whole condition is already known.