Equivalent to a keypreview property in WPF

Question

I\'m pondering taking the plunge to WPF from WinForms for some of my apps, currently I\'m working on the combined barcode-reader/text-entry program (healthcare patient forms

Answer 1

Thanks got it working! Only problem was I'm coding in VB not C#, but the basic idea holds. Neat to create a label out of thin air and use it to insert yourself in the event stream.

If someone else is interested of the same solution but in VB for WPF, here's my test program, it manages to toss all 'a' characters typed, no matter what control has the focus:

Class MainWindow

    Dim WithEvents labelFromThinAir As Label

    Private Sub Window_Loaded(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.RoutedEventArgs) Handles MyBase.Loaded
        AddHandler MainWindow.PreviewKeyDown, AddressOf labelFromThinAir_PreviewKeyDown
    End Sub

    Private Sub labelFromThinAir_PreviewKeyDown(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As KeyEventArgs)
        TextBox1.Text = e.Key    ' watch 'em coming
        If (44 = e.Key) Then e.Handled = True
    End Sub

End Class

P.S. This was my first post on stackoverflow, really a useful site. Perhaps I'll be able to answer some questions in here myself later on :-)