Better Way to programmatically detect a key press?

Question

I\'m currently using this:

while (1)
    {
        if (GetAsyncKeyState(VK_F1))
        {
        //do something
        }
    }

to detect if a

Answer 1

The better way of doing this is using your WndProc(). So use standard WM_KEYDOWN/WM_KEYUP messages to handle keyboard input. Here is an example:

LRESULT CALLBACK WndProc( HWND hwnd, UINT uMsg, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam )
{
  switch ( uMsg )
  {
    case WM_CLOSE:
        DestroyWindow(hwnd);
    break;
    case WM_DESTROY:
        PostQuitMessage(0);
    break;
      case WM_KEYDOWN:
      if ( wParam == VK_F1 )
      {
        // Do something here
        return 0L;
      }
      break;
  }

  return DefWindowProc( hwnd, uMsg, wParam, lParam );
}

int WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance,
    LPSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow)
{
    WNDCLASSEX wc;
    HWND hwnd;
    MSG Msg;

    //Step 1: Registering the Window Class
    wc.cbSize        = sizeof(WNDCLASSEX);
    wc.style         = 0;
    wc.lpfnWndProc   = WndProc;
    // lots of other attrs ...
    wc.lpszClassName = g_szClassName;
    wc.hIconSm       = LoadIcon(NULL, IDI_APPLICATION);

    if(!RegisterClassEx(&wc))
        return 0;

    // Step 2: Creating the Window
    hwnd = CreateWindowEx(
        ...
        g_szClassName,
        ...);

    if(hwnd == NULL)
         return 0;

    ShowWindow(hwnd, nCmdShow);
    UpdateWindow(hwnd);

    // Step 3: The Message Loop
    while(GetMessage(&Msg, NULL, 0, 0) > 0)
    {
        TranslateMessage(&Msg);
        DispatchMessage(&Msg);
    }
    return Msg.wParam;
}