Processing Keystroke Messages - Win32 Programmer's Reference

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Processing Keystroke Messages

The window procedure of the window that has the keyboard focus receives keystroke messages when the user types at the keyboard. The keystroke messages are WM_KEYDOWN, WM_KEYUP, WM_SYSKEYDOWN, and WM_SYSKEYUP. A typical window procedure ignores all keystroke messages except WM_KEYDOWN. Windows posts the WM_KEYDOWN message when the user presses a key.

When the window procedure receives the WM_KEYDOWN message, it should examine the virtual-key code that accompanies the message to determine how to process the keystroke. The virtual-key code is in the message's wParam parameter. Typically, an application processes only keystrokes generated by noncharacter keys, including the function keys, the cursor movement keys, and the special-purpose keys such as INS, DEL, HOME and END.

The following example shows the window procedure framework that a typical application uses to receive and process keystroke messages.

case WM_KEYDOWN:

switch (wParam) {

case VK_LEFT:

. /* Process the LEFT ARROW key. */

break;

case VK_RIGHT:

. /* Process the RIGHT ARROW key. */

break;

case VK_UP:

. /* Process the UP ARROW key. */

break;

case VK_DOWN:

. /* Process the DOWN ARROW key. */

break;

case VK_HOME:

. /* Process the HOME key. */

break;

case VK_END:

. /* Process the END key. */

break;

case VK_INSERT:

. /* Process the INS key. */

break;

case VK_DELETE:

. /* Process the DEL key. */

break;

case VK_F2:

. /* Process the F2 key. */

break;

. /* Process other noncharacter keystrokes. */

default:

break;

}

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