Windows Forms - Enter keypress activates submit button?

Question

How can I capture enter keypresses anywhere on my form and force it to fire the submit button event?

Answer 1

If you set your Form's AcceptButton property to one of the Buttons on the Form, you'll get that behaviour by default.

Otherwise, set the KeyPreview property to true on the Form and handle its KeyDown event. You can check for the Enter key and take the necessary action.

Answer 2

private void textBox_KeyDown(object sender, KeyEventArgs e) 
{
    if (e.KeyCode == Keys.Enter)
        button.PerformClick();
}

Answer 3

You can designate a button as the "AcceptButton" in the Form's properties and that will catch any "Enter" keypresses on the form and route them to that control.

See How to: Designate a Windows Forms Button as the Accept Button Using the Designer and note the few exceptions it outlines (multi-line text-boxes, etc.)

Answer 4

As previously stated, set your form's AcceptButton property to one of its buttons AND set the DialogResult property for that button to DialogResult.OK, in order for the caller to know if the dialog was accepted or dismissed.