Escape button to close Windows Forms form in C#

Question

I have tried the following:

private void Form1_KeyDown(object sender, System.Windows.Forms.KeyEventArgs e)
{
    if ((Keys) e.KeyValue == Keys.Escape)
               


        

Answer 1

The accepted answer indeed is correct, and I've used that approach several times. Suddenly, it would not work anymore, so I found it strange. Mostly because my breakpoint would not be hit for ESC key, but it would hit for other keys.

After debugging I found out that one of the controls from my form was overriding ProcessCmdKey method, with this code:

protected override bool ProcessCmdKey(ref Message msg, Keys keyData)
{
    // ...
    if (keyData == (Keys.Escape))
    {
        Close();
        return true;
    }
    return base.ProcessCmdKey(ref msg, keyData);
}

... and this was preventing my form from getting the ESC key (notice the return true). So make sure that no child controls are taking over your input.