[RESOLVED] [2008] KeyDown and KeyPress events not responding

In the application I'm working on I use F1 and also a right mouse click to close the application since the graphics display full screen and there's no control in the upper right corner to close with. I use a good number of different keypresses to control things and everything works fine. When I switch away from the form that the applications starts in to a different form I'm not getting any response from either a KeyDown or a KeyPress event. Maybe someone knows what's going on. The ButtonClick and MouseDown events are responding just fine but for some reason the KeyDown and KeyPress events aren't. Below is code for one of the Forms that is unresponsive in this way. I put Close() outside the If Thens below so that any
KeyPress or KeyDown would close but nothing happens.

Code:

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Option Strict On
Public Class InstructionsForRayRover
    Inherits System.Windows.Forms.Form

    Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
        TellAboutwOn = 0
        StartForm1 = 1
        mainForm = New DisplayGraphics
        Me.Close()
    End Sub

    Private Sub InstructionsForRayRover_Closing(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.ComponentModel.CancelEventArgs) Handles MyBase.Closing
        If mainForm Is Me Then
            mainForm = Nothing
        End If
    End Sub

    Private Sub InstructionsForRayRover_KeyDown(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.KeyEventArgs) Handles Me.KeyDown
        Close()
        If e.KeyCode = Keys.F1 Then

        End If
    End Sub

    Private Sub InstructionsForRayRover_KeyPress(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.KeyPressEventArgs) Handles Me.KeyPress
        Close()
        If e.KeyChar = "a"c Then

        End If
    End Sub

    Private Sub InstructionsForRayRover_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
' This is just to center the text at the top of the form. There might be a more efficient way to to this
        st2 = My.Computer.Info.OSFullName
        b = st2.IndexOf("XP") ' b will = -1 if any version of Windows XP isn't being used
        If b >= 0 Then
            a = CInt((Hxlimit - 96) / 4.07)
        Else
            a = CInt((Hxlimit - 96) / 3)
        End If
        st1 = ""
        For i = 0 To a
            st1 = st1 & " "
        Next
        Me.Text = st1 & "Instructions On Using Ray Rover"
        Label1.Left = HxlimitI - 364
        Label3.Left = HxlimitI - 364
        Button1.Left = HxlimitI - 60
        ButtonUpdate.Left = HxlimitI - 106
        Label2.Width = XlimitI - 25
    End Sub

    Private Sub InstructionsForRayRover_MouseDown(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.MouseEventArgs) Handles MyBase.MouseDown
        If MouseButtons = MouseButtons.Right Then
            Close()
        End If
    End Sub

End Class

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Set the form KeyPreview property to true at design time or in your Form_Load event.

Thanks very much, that took care of the problem. What's interesting is that KeyPreview for my starting form was set to false but it does respond to KeyPress events and my Form_Load event doesn't specify anything about KeyPreview. Anyway problem fixed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by EntityX

Thanks very much, that took care of the problem. What's interesting is that KeyPreview for my starting form was set to false but it does respond to KeyPress events and my Form_Load event doesn't specify anything about KeyPreview. Anyway problem fixed.

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That's because as long as the focus is on your form, you don't need KeyPreview on. If you have anything that draws immediate focus, such as a Button or TextBox, then the form won't be getting it. But if your first form was just labels and such, you wouldn't need the preview on.

That explains it. My starting form doesn't have any textbox or similar objects, just labels.