How to capture keypress inside the whole Form

[flasher86]

hi, I am writing an app which can be controlled all by the keyboard, but with graphical user interface. I have a lot of groupboxes and other controls on the main form.

How to capture keypress globally in my form, no matter which control is focused? I don't want to link every control on my form with it. I know there is a global hook (for the whole system) but then some Antivirus programs may detect it as a threat.

[typo]

Set KeyPreview form property to True and handle key events on form event handlers.

[TurboRascal]

It's easiest to enable it when the form is created (OnCreate event):

Code: Pascal  [Select][+][-]

1. procedure TForm1.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
2. begin
3.   Form1.KeyPreview := True  // this enables the form to receive keypress events
4. end;
5.  

Then you handle the keypresses. If you need to capture keys with printing characters, you can use the OnKeyPress event, but for capturing special keys (like F-keys etc.) you need to use OnKeyDown event, but you may also need to handle OnKeyUp event afterwards (depending on what you do), like this:

Code: Pascal  [Select][+][-]

1. procedure TForm1.FormKeyDown(Sender: TObject; var Key: Word; Shift: TShiftState  );
2. begin
3.   //your keypress handler goes here
4. end;
5.  
6. procedure TForm1.FormKeyUp(Sender: TObject; var Key: Word; Shift: TShiftState);
7. begin
8.   //your key RELEASE handler goes here; it may be necessary if using modifier keys
9. end;
10.