Blake Niemyjski : VB.Net, C#

How to register a keyboard shortcut (hot key) in a .NET Windows Forms Application.

Blake Niemyjski — Tue, 19 May 2009 15:00:00 GMT

There may come a time when you want to implement some extra features or maybe an Easter egg into your application using keyboard shortcuts. I was recently tasked with creating an Easter egg so we could test some functionality in CodeSmith. After countless searches looking for an elegant solution (I found a few ugly solutions and some nicer ones) I came across Method #3. I’ll First touch on the one I didn’t choose to go with.

Method #1

The following code block will make an unmanaged call to the user32.dll to register the hotkey. I would never go this approach, but if you were like me and couldn’t find anything in the time frame allotted then you might end up implementing this.

First you will need to update your using block.

     using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

Then add the following code to your form.

    /// <summary> The RegisterHotKey function defines a system-wide hot key </summary>

    /// <param name="hWnd">Handle to the window that will receive WM_HOTKEY messages

    /// generated by the hot key.</param>

    /// <param name="id">Specifies the identifier of the hot key.</param>

    /// <param name="fsModifiers">Specifies keys that must be pressed in combination with the key

    /// specified by the 'virtualKey' parameter in order to generate the WM_HOTKEY message.</param>

    /// <param name="virtualKey">Specifies the virtual-key code of the hot key</param>

    /// <returns><c>true</c> if the function succeeds, otherwise <c>false</c></returns>

    /// <seealso cref="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms646309(VS.85).aspx"/>

    [DllImport("user32.dll")]

    [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)]

    static extern bool RegisterHotKey(IntPtr hWnd, int id, uint fsModifiers, uint virtualKey);

    [DllImport("user32.dll")]

    private static extern bool UnregisterHotKey(IntPtr hWnd, int id);

    public static int MOD_CONTROL = 0x2;

    public static int MOD_SHIFT = 0x4;

    public static int WM_HOTKEY = 0x312;

    private static int keyId;

    public static void RegisterHotKey(Form f, Keys key)

    {

       int modifiers = 0;

       if ((key & Keys.Control) == Keys.Control)

           modifiers = modifiers | MOD_CONTROL;

       if ((key & Keys.Shift) == Keys.Shift)

           modifiers = modifiers | MOD_SHIFT;

       Keys k = key & ~Keys.Control & ~Keys.Shift;

       Func<bool> ff = () =>

                           {

                               keyId = f.GetHashCode();

                               RegisterHotKey(f.Handle, keyId, (uint) modifiers, (uint) k);

                               return true;

                           };

       if (f.InvokeRequired)

           f.Invoke(ff);

       else

           ff();

    }

    public static void UnregisterHotKey(Form f)

    {

       try

       {

           Func<bool> ff = () =>

                               {

                                   UnregisterHotKey(f.Handle, keyId);

                                   return true;

                               };

           if (f.InvokeRequired)

               f.Invoke(ff);

           else

               ff();

       }

       catch (Exception ex)

       {

           Debug.WriteLine(ex.ToString());

       }

    }

    protected override void WndProc(ref Message m)

    {

       base.WndProc(ref m);

       if (m.Msg == WM_HOTKEY)

           throw new Exception("You found an Easter Egg.");

    }

Then in your Form Load event add the following code.

    Keys k = Keys.F2 | Keys.Control;

    RegisterHotKey(this, k);

I found this example here, Please note that I did some refactoring to it.

Method #2

I also found this WPF solution that I haven’t tried but should work. This looks like the best approach for implementing this functionality in WPF as I have seen people use the first method.

    public WindowMain()

    {  

       InitializeComponent();     

       this.InputBindings.Add(new InputBinding(MyAppCommands.SaveAll, new KeyGesture(Key.F2, ModifierKeys.Control)););

       CommandBinding cb = new CommandBinding(MyAppCommands.SaveAll);

       cb.Executed += SaveAllDocuments;

       this.CommandBindings.Add(cb );

    }

    private void SaveAllDocuments(object obSender, ExecutedRoutedEventArgs e)

    {

    }

Method #3

The approach I went I thought was the best way as it is small and elegant piece of code. It is completely safe to implement as it doesn’t have any hooks into native windows dlls. The initial idea came from here, to implement this code just place it anywhere in your Form.

    protected override bool ProcessCmdKey(ref Message message, Keys keys)

    {

        switch (keys)

        {

            case Keys.F2 | Keys.Control:

                //Process action here.

                return false;

        }

        return false;

    }

Method #4

A friend recently sent me this example right before publishing this. I have never seen this approach but never the less it is an example of how to implement this functionality.

C#

    public class MyMainForm : System.Windows.Forms.Form, IMessageFilter

    {

         const int WM_KEYDOWN = 0x100;

         const int WM_KEYUP = 0x101;

         public bool PreFilterMessage(ref Message m)

         {

              Keys keyCode = (Keys)(int)m.WParam & Keys.KeyCode;

              if(m.Msg == WM_KEYDOWN && keyCode == Keys.Escape)

              {

                   Console.WriteLine("Ignoring Escape...");

                   return true;

              }

              return false;

         }

         private void MyMainForm_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)

         {

              Application.AddMessageFilter(this);

         }

    }

VB.NET

    Public Class MyMainForm

         Inherits System.Windows.Forms.Form

         Implements IMessageFilter

         Private WM_KEYDOWN As Integer = &H100

         Private WM_KEYUP As Integer = &H101

         Public Function PreFilterMessage(ByRef m As Message) As Boolean

              Dim keyCode As Keys = CType(CInt(m.WParam), Keys) And Keys.KeyCode

              If m.Msg = WM_KEYDOWN And keyCode = Keys.Escape Then

                   Console.WriteLine("Ignoring Escape...")

                   Return True

              End If

              Return False

         End Function 'PreFilterMessage

         Private Sub MyMainForm_Load(sender As Object, e As System.EventArgs)

              Application.AddMessageFilter(Me)

         End Sub 'MyMainForm_Load

    End Class 'MyMainForm

Please let me know if you find any issues in the sample code above.

Microsoft's 2008 Lang.NET Symposium Videos

Blake Niemyjski — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 04:32:00 GMT

Check out the screen casts / videos of the Microsoft 2008 Lang.NET Symposium event. They have some pretty interesting videos available for everyone, granted you have Silverlight installed.

View ( 2008 Lang.NET Symposium Videos )

Got Posters?

Blake Niemyjski — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 18:26:00 GMT

Chris Bowen’s did a search last month for all posters available on Microsoft Downloads. This is what he found:

.NET 3.5 Namespaces Poster
The .NET Framework 3.5 Common Namespaces and Types Poster
Visual Basic 2008 Keybinding Poster
Printable wall poster containing list of useful keyboard shortcuts for Visual Basic 2008 developers
Visual C++ 2008 Keybinding Poster
List of keybindings for Visual C++ language within Visual Studio and Visual C++ Express 2008
Visual C# 2008 Poster
Wall chart showing useful keyboard shortcuts for Visual C# programming language
2007 Office System: Developer Posters
Download these posters to learn more about the new features and enhancement to the 2007 Microsoft Office System.
Windows Server 2008 Component Posters
Windows Server 2008 Component Posters, originally printed in the July 2007 issue of TechNet Magazine.
Microsoft Silverlight 1.1 (Ed: Make that 2.0) Developer Reference Poster
Microsoft Silverlight Developer Reference Poster
PnP Overview Poster
Patterns & Practices Overview Poster
Smart Client Poster
Patterns & Practices Smart Client Poster
Visual C# 2005 Keyboard Shortcut Reference Poster
This poster contains the default keybindings for Visual C# 2005, and is available as a PDF download in either color or grayscale for you to print.
Visual Basic 2005 Keyboard Shortcut Reference Poster
This poster contains the default key bindings for Visual Basic 2005, and is available as a PDF download in either color or grayscale for you to print.
Visual C++ 2005 Keyboard Shortcut Reference Poster
This poster contains the default keybindings for Visual C++ 2005, and is available as a PDF download in either color or grayscale for you to print.

Source ( Got Tech Posters? )

I also just did a search for myself and only came up with four results.

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 related downloads

Blake Niemyjski — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 15:06:00 GMT

The last couple of days have been better than Christmas for a few of us. Microsoft has been releasing many updates to its developer tools and sdk to go with the recent release of Visual Studio 2008. Below I have listed the updates that have been released with download links. Enjoy!

Visual Studio 2008

Download Express Versions ( here )
Download Retail Versions [ MSDN subscribers only ] ( here )
Download Trial Versions ( here )

Visual Studio 2008 SDK

"This is the official software development kit that allows developers to integrate tools, editors, designers, languages, and other features inside Visual Studio 2008.

Key features in the VS 2008 SDK include:
Visual Studio Shell development support
Enhancements in Domain-specific Language tools
Visual Studio Package development and testing support for C++, C# and Visual Basic
Code samples and documentation covering toolbox controls integration, general IDE integration, Domain-specific Languages (DSL), Team Foundation Server extensibility, Data Designers extensibility , and other areas
Support for Windows Vista"
Source Microsoft

Download Visual Studio 2008 SDK ( Version 1.0 )

Visual Studio 2008 Samples

"ASP.NET
Samples and starter kits are located here.
Visual Basic
Samples for Visual Studio 2008
Samples for Visual Basic 2008 Express
Hands On Labs for LINQ
101 LINQ Samples
Visual C#
LINQ and language samples for Visual Studio 2008
LINQ Hands On Labs
LINQ to SQL Hands on Lab
C# 3.0 Language Enhancements Hands On Lab
LINQ to SQL Beta 2 to RTM Breaking Changes
Visual Basic and C# Breaking Changes from Visual Studio 2005 to Visual Studio 2008"

Source Microsoft

Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office system 3.0

"This download (VSTOR30.exe) installs the Visual Studio Tools for the Office system 3.0 Runtime, which is required to run VSTO solutions for the 2007 Microsoft Office system built using Microsoft Visual Studio 2008" (Microsoft).

Download Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office system ( x86 )

Microsoft Report Viewer Redistributable 2008

"Microsoft Report Viewer control enables applications that run on the .NET Framework to display reports designed using Microsoft reporting technology. This redistributable package contains Windows Forms and ASP.NET Web server control versions of the Report Viewer" (Microsoft).
Download Microsoft Report Viewer Redistributable 2008 ( here )

Visual Studio 2008 Training Kit

"The Visual Studio 2008 Training Kit contains a full 5-days of technical content including 20 hands-on labs, 28 presentations, and 20 scripted demos. The technologies covered in the kit include: LINQ, C# 3.0, VB 9, WCF, WF, WPF, Windows CardSpace, Silverlight, ASP.NET Ajax, .NET Compact Framework 3.5, VSTO 3.0, Visual Studio Team System, and Team Foundation Server" (Eric Nelson).
Download Visual Studio 2008 Training Kit ( here )

Visual Studio 2008 Shell (isolated mode) Redistributable Package

"The Visual Studio Shell (isolated mode) provides a foundation on which you can build your own custom-branded tools environment that runs side by side with Visual Studio. By using the Visual Studio Shell (isolated mode), you can accelerate development by reusing the Visual Studio IDE in your application and focus on your core tooling problems" (Microsoft).
Download Visual Studio 2008 Shell (isolated mode) Redistributable Package ( Here )

Visual Studio 2008 Shell (integrated mode) Redistributable Package

"The Visual Studio Shell (integrated mode) provides the foundation on which you can seamlessly integrate tools and programming languages within Visual Studio. The Visual Studio Shell (integrated mode) does not contain any programming language, so it provides the perfect foundation to deploy a development environment for your own language. The Visual Studio Shell (integrated mode) seamlessly integrates with Visual Studio 2008 Standard and above. Any tools and programming languages that run inside the Visual Studio Shell (integrated mode) will run together with Visual Studio 2008 (Standard and above) if they are also installed on the same machine. By using the Visual Studio Shell (integrated mode), you will not need to make Visual Studio a pre-requisite on your user machines" (Microsoft).
Download Visual Studio 2008 Shell (integrated mode) Redistributable Package ( Here )

C# 3.0 and VB.NET 9.0 language specifications documents updated

Blake Niemyjski — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 15:51:00 GMT

Microsoft has released updated documents detailing the language specifications for C# 3.0 and VB.NET 9.0 ( C# 3.0 and VB.NET 9.0 language specifications ). These documents should take you quite some time to read . Enjoy!

Download ( C# 3.0 Language specifications )

Download ( VB.NET 9.0 Language specifications )

Visual Studio 2005 Keyboard Shortcut Reference Posters

Blake Niemyjski — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 09:10:00 GMT

I found these posters after exploring an interesting MSDN blog of a K-12 Computer Science Academic Relations Manager. The posters are nice and well worth spending the couple of seconds to download them.

Here are the download links for each language(s) shortcut reference poster

Visual Basic 2005
Visual C#
Visual C++

Source ( Visual Studio Keyboard Shortcut Posters )

Up and coming features in C# 3.0

Blake Niemyjski — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 20:34:00 GMT

I'm personally Looking forward to C# 3.0. There are some interesting new things coming to the language. However there are somethings I really don't like about c# (please pay attention to the end of this video Anders Hejlsberg - Programming data in C# 3.0 )

Local variable type inference ( I personally don't really like this idea)
Extension methods
Lamda expressions
Object initializers
Collection initializers
Query expressions
Anonymous types
Expression trees
Automatic properties

(Source: C# 3.0: Upcoming Language Features)

26.1Implicitly typed local variables

In an implicitly typed local variable declaration, the type of the local variable being declared is inferred from the expression used to initialize the variable. When a local variable declaration specifies var as the type and no type named var is in scope, the declaration is an implicitly typed local variable declaration. For example:

var i = 5;
var s = "Hello";
var d = 1.0;
var numbers = new int[] {1, 2, 3};
var orders = new Dictionary<int,Order>();

The implicitly typed local variable declarations above are precisely equivalent to the following explicitly typed declarations:

int i = 5;
string s = "Hello";
double d = 1.0;
int[] numbers = new int[] {1, 2, 3};
Dictionary<int,Order> orders = new Dictionary<int,Order>();

This reminds me of javascript, and personally I think this is a wrong move for the language because it kind of forces developers to be lazy. Even more so on larger projects could lead to developers that are maintaining code to do extra work just to understand the code. We will just have to wait and see how it turns out.

Download ( Overview of C# 3.0 )

Download ( Ocas October CTP - C# 3.0 Virtual PC Image )

Watch ( C# 3.0: Future Directions in Language Innovation )

How to use Microsoft's Speech API (SAPI) in a managed application (C# - VB .Net)

Blake Niemyjski — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 22:55:00 GMT

Sometime soon, I plan on releasing a cool application that uses text-to-speech. Some of you might have been curious about the implementation about text-to-speech for quite a while. The implementation of text-to-speech really isn't that hard as long as you use Microsoft's Speech API (SAPI). The current version of SAPI that you can download from Microsoft is 5.1, however if your running Windows Vista then you will have 5.3 preinstalled. If you have any version of Microsoft Office installed then you more then likely have this already, If not a download link is below.

The following link (Giving Computers a Voice) will lead you to a Microsoft site that will show you how to create a project and get a basic text to speech application up and running in VB .Net or c# in no time!

SAPI

SAPI is the speech API that gives applications access to speech recognition and text-to-speech (TTS) engines. This article focuses on TTS. For TTS, SAPI takes text as input and uses the TTS engine to output that text as spoken audio. This is the same technology used by the Windows accessibility tool, Narrator. Every version of Windows since XP has shipped with SAPI and an English TTS engine.

TTS puts user's ears to work. It allows applications to send information to the user without requiring the user's eyes or hands. This is a very powerful output option that isn't often utilized on PCs.

Three steps are needed to use TTS in a managed application:

1. Create an interop DLL
Since SAPI is a COM component, an interop DLL is needed to use it from a managed app. To create this, open the project in Visual Studio. Select the Project menu and click Add Reference. Select the COM tab, select "Microsoft Speech Object Library" in the list, and click OK. These steps add this reference to your project and create an Interop.SpeechLib.dll in the same folder as your executable. This interop DLL must always be in the same folder as your .exe to work correctly.
2. Reference the interop namespace

Include this namespace in your application. In C#, add "using SpeechLib;"; iIn VB, add “Imports SpeechLib”.
3. call Speak()

Create a SpVoice object and call Speak():

Visual C#

    SpVoice voice = new SpVoice();
    voice.Speak("Hello World!", SpeechVoiceSpeakFlags.SVSFDefault);

Visual Basic

    voice = New SpVoice
    voice.Speak("Hello World!", SpeechVoiceSpeakFlags.SVSFDefault)

** After posting the article Giving Computers a Voice went down, The above an excerpt from the article, all credit should go to the rightful author. **

If your running Windows Vista, and your planning on really diving deep into Microsoft's Speech API (SAPI) version 5.3 then check out the following MSDN article ( Microsoft Speech API 5.3 )

For those of you who are looking for various Microsoft blogs that consistently blog about Speech related technologies then check out the following:

Download ( Speech SDK 5.1 )

10 Programming Languages everyone should learn.

Blake Niemyjski — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 18:12:00 GMT

I found this article over at eweek.com a few days ago and found it to be worthy of posting.

1. PHP

What it is: An open-source, interpretive, server-side, cross-platform, HTML scripting language, especially well-suited for Web development as it can be embedded into HTML pages.

Why you should learn it: It's particularly widely used. "High-speed scripting with caching, augmented with compiled code plug-ins (such as can be done with Perl and PHP) is where the future is. Building Web apps from scratch using C or COBOL is going the way of the dinosaur," said Duquaine.

Job availabilities: 1,152*

2. C#
What it is: A general-purpose, compiled, object-oriented programming language developed by Microsoft as part of its .NET initiative, it evolved from C and C++

Why you should learn it: It's an essential part of the .Net framework. "Learning C#, which is just Java with a different name plate, is critical if you heavily use Microsoft," said Duquaine.

Job availabilities: 5,111

3. AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML)
What it is: Though technically not a programming language, AJAX uses XHTML or HTML, JavaScript and XML to create interactive Web applications.

Why you should learn it: Ever since Google Maps put AJAX, well, on the map, the requests for AJAX-knowledgeable pros went through the roof. "The demand for AJAX knowledge is huge because it's so damned hard to learn," said Huckaby. Of note, Microsoft announced recently plans to release a tool named Atlas that will make AJAX easier to implement. "If Microsoft's Atlas tool is successful, it would bring the extreme complexity and annoyance of AJAX to the average worker," said Huckaby.

Job availabilities : 1,106

4. JavaScript
What it is: Not to be confused with Java, JavaScript is a an object-oriented, scripting programming language that runs in the Web browser on the client side. It's smaller than Java, with a simplified set of commands, easier to code and doesn't have to be compiled.

Why you should learn it: Embedded into HTML, it's used in millions of Web pages to validate forms, create cookies, detect browsers and improve the design. With its simplicity to learn as well as wide use, it's considered a great bang for your educational buck.

Job availabilities: 4,406

5. Perl
What it is: Perl is an open-source, cross-platform, server-side interpretive programming language used extensively to process text through CGI programs.

Why you should learn it: Perl's power in processing of piles of text has made it very popular and widely used to write Web server programs for a range of tasks. "Learning some form of scripting language, such as Perl or PHP is critical if you are doing Web apps," said Duquaine.

Job availabilities: 4,810

6. C
What it is: A standardized, general-purpose programming language, it's one of the most pervasive languages and the basis for several others (such as C++).

Why you should learn it: "Learning C is crucial. Once you learn C, making the jump to Java or C# is fairly easy, because a lot of the syntax is common. Also, a lot of C syntax is used in scripting languages," said Duquaine.

Job availabilities: 6,164, including all derivatives

7. Ruby and Ruby on Rails
What they are: Ruby is a dynamic, object-oriented, open-source programming language; Ruby on Rails is an open-source Web application framework written in Ruby that closely follows the MVC (Model-View-Controller) architecture.

Why you should learn it: With a focus on simplicity, productivity and letting the computers do the work, in a few years, its usage has spread quickly. As a bonus, many find it easy to learn.

Job availabilities : 210 and 54, respectively

8. Java
What it is: An object-oriented programming language developed by James Gosling and colleagues at Sun Microsystems in the early 1990s.

Why you should learn it: Hailed by many developers as a "beautiful" language, it is central to the non-.Net programming experience. "Learning Java is critical if you are non-Microsoft," said Duquaine.

Job availabilities: 14,408

9. Python
What it is: An interpreted, dynamically object-oriented, open-source programming language that utilizes automatic memory management.

Why you should learn it: Designed to be a highly readable, minimalist language, many say it has a sense of humor (spam and eggs, rather than foo and bar), Python is used extensively by Google as well as in academia because of its syntactic simplicity.

Job availabilities: 811

10. VB.Net (Visual Basic .Net)
What it is: An object-oriented language implemented on Microsoft's .Net framework.

Why you should learn it: Most argue that VB.Net is currently more popular than ever and one of the only "must-learns." "It is currently dominating in adoption and that is where all the work is," said Huckaby.

Job availabilities: 2,090

I'm hopeing that they write up a simular article in about a year. I would love to see if any avalon related technologys make it on this list. I'm pretty amazed that I already know five out of the ten langueages present in this list and am currently learning the 6th (C).