How can I get keyboard keys?

ex. a-z; 0-9; etc.

Is there a keyboard ontrol or something?

You're not going to automatically capture anything but the keys that are meant to be used together ... and that is the ctrl+anykey and shift+anykey ... and then only in the KeyPress event (the KeyDown and KeyUp will capture them singly).

pressing:shift + a

KeyPress: A

KeyDown: Shift, A

So, my suggestion is that you use the KeyPress event to capture the keys, but concatenate them and store them in a variable. Maybe also have a variable that stores the time of the keypress so that you know when to reset your string variable.

Look at the KeyPress, KeyUp and/or KeyDown event handlers.

how can I get multiple keys at once?

ex. a & b; 1 & 2;etc.

Can you explain your exact requirement?

Any and every key on the keyboard that's pressed.

ex. a-z; 0-9; special chars; arrows; F1-12; tab; caps; shift left; shift right; ctrl; alt; windows key; context menu key; the hotkeys; etc.

Basically put, a string of every possible key on the keyboard that can be pressed. As well I need to be able to capture all pressed keys not just the first.

Okey then you set the KeyPreview property of the form to True..

and then in the KeyDown event of the Form you can catch all the key pressed..

Hmm that works to get all the keys, yes but only one at a time. How can I get every key currently pressed?

Also how can I make the form view the keys even without window focus?(ex. IE explore has the focus and my program does not.)

I'm guessing that you might be talking about CTRL + {another key} type of scenario? For that, use the KeyPress event instead of the KeyDown event.

As for your other question, I'm afraid I can't help you with that ... I'm not sure that it can be done, but I could be wrong.

Well ctrl+{key} Is one example but I mean stuff like these examples:

You're not going to automatically capture anything but the keys that are meant to be used together ... and that is the ctrl+anykey and shift+anykey ... and then only in the KeyPress event (the KeyDown and KeyUp will capture them singly).

pressing:shift + a

KeyPress: A

KeyDown: Shift, A

So, my suggestion is that you use the KeyPress event to capture the keys, but concatenate them and store them in a variable. Maybe also have a variable that stores the time of the keypress so that you know when to reset your string variable.

Hmm well ok, thisthread didn't help me as much as I hoped but I'll try your last suggestion and try making a user control out of it somehow. Thx

That's the bestone can do, based on how the events work. My suggestion should get you pointed to a workable solution though. Let us know if you run into any snags and have any other questions.