Capturing the windows key in c# (wpf)

Question

I have written a small program displaying sounds and images on the screen when pushing any button. I always start it when one of my little kids crawls onto my lap and start hitting the keys, of course, randomly.

It works fine except for 2 keys, one of them being the ON/OFF switch, the other being the Windows-key. (the CTRL-ESC equivalent I believe) I can intercept it as it is pressed, but only after the startmenu is showing.

The event I use is the UIElement.KeyDown and all I could came up with so far is : (the e being KeyEventArgs)

            if (e.Key == Key.LWin) e.Handled = true;

but than the start window is already showing I'm afraid.

I have already 1 answer but would very much like to know if there's any wpf-support?

I suspect programming the main on/off switch might not be possible? Otherwise, any help there would be welcome too..

Answer 1

You'll need a keyboard hook. Unfortunately, this has to be done with P/Invoke; it can't be done with managed code.

Check out Baby Smash! by Scott Hanselman. It's hosted on code plex at http://www.codeplex.com/babysmash Github at https://github.com/shanselman/babysmash

Alternatively, check out ShapeShow on CodeProject, which is similar.

Answer 2

See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.input.key(v=VS.90).aspx

At the bottom you'll see a simple example, I think what you're looking for is something along these lines:

left windows key: System.Windows.Input.Key.LWin

right windows key: System.Windows.Input.Key.RWin

example:

private void OnKeyDownHandler(object sender, KeyEventArgs e)
{
    if (e.Key == Key.LWin) {
        textBlock1.Text = "You Entered: " + textBox1.Text;
    }
}