Checking if control/command key is currently pressed in VS Extensions

Question

In my extension, I would like to check in a certain function, if the control (or command) key is currently pressed. How is that possible? I couldn't find any field that exposes this information.

Answer 1

If you read the below article

https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/extensionAPI/patterns-and-principles

It says

Visual Studio Code has a very rich extensibility model and there are many ways to extend the tool. However, we do not provide direct access to the underlying UI DOM to extension writers. With VS Code, we’re continually trying to optimize use of the underlying web technologies to deliver an always available, highly responsive editor and we will continue to tune our use of the DOM as these technologies and our product evolve. To maintain performance and compatibility, we run extensions in their own host process and prevent direct access to the DOM. VS Code also includes a built-in set of UI components for common scenarios such as IntelliSense, so that these experiences are consistent across programming languages and extensions and extension developers do not need to build their own.

We realize that this approach may initially feel restrictive to extension developers. We’re always looking for ways to improve our extensibility model and expand the capabilities available to extensions. We look forward to hearing your feedback and ideas.

This means your extension code doesn't run the in editor window context at all. And you can't hack into the webview as the extension api doesn't provide it. So you need to open a Feature request with VScode team and ask them to expose either the last keyboard event or atleast the status of Shift, Ctrl and alt keys. Currently they just discard it and throw it away (if no editor is open) else they send it to the monaco editor before checking for any shortcut combination