Monitoring keydown events in MDI form?

I've a mdiform where sometimes a mdichild (one or more) are loaded and sometimes there isn't any mdichild form loaded.

I want to use keyboard shortcuts for specific tasks (for example control+B to show a mdichild, alt+2 to change graphic parameters of an opened mdichild, etc). I've been looking in the forum and some guy said to use a picturebox control in the background of the mdiform and at the end of the keydown event use

Code:

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Picture1.SetFocus

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The problem is when I use that solution, no mdichild form can be seen on the mdiform. I think the mdichild is behind of the picturebox control.

So, what solution can I use? Remember that the mdiform has some key shortcuts and the mdichild forms have different key shortcuts.

When I open the menu editor in the design time and I assign a key shortcut it's not needed to use any extra code. In runtime I press the key combination and it triggers the part of the code associated with that key shortcut.

My question now is: if I want to use a different combination of keys that are not present in the menu editor in the design time (like alt + 1). What do I should do?

try setting the picture's allignment to top
and its height to 0 (zero)