Page-global keyboard events in Windows Store Apps

Question

I\'m working on a game, a Windows Store App based on WPF and written in C#. When the player presses the Esc key, I want to pause the game and show a menu (Continue, Quit etc

Answer 1

CoreWindow.GetForCurrentThread().KeyDown will not capture events if it the focus is on some other grid/webView/text box, so instead use AcceleratorKeyActivated event. Irrespective of where the focus is it will always capture the event.

public MyPage()
{
    Window.Current.CoreWindow.Dispatcher.AcceleratorKeyActivated += AcceleratorKeyActivated;
}


private void AcceleratorKeyActivated(CoreDispatcher sender, AcceleratorKeyEventArgs args)
{
    if (args.EventType.ToString().Contains("Down"))
    {
        var ctrl = Window.Current.CoreWindow.GetKeyState(VirtualKey.Control);
        if (ctrl.HasFlag(CoreVirtualKeyStates.Down))
        {
            switch (args.VirtualKey)
            {
                case VirtualKey.A:
                    Debug.WriteLine(args.VirtualKey);
                    Play_click(sender, new RoutedEventArgs());
                    break;
            }
        }
    }
}

Answer 2

Try using CoreWindow.KeyDown. Assign the handler in your page and I believe it should intercept all keydown events.

public MyPage()
{
    CoreWindow.GetForCurrentThread().KeyDown += MyPage_KeyDown;
}

void MyPage_KeyDown(CoreWindow sender, KeyEventArgs args)
{
    Debug.WriteLine(args.VirtualKey.ToString());
}