The Command Button's KeyPress, KeyDown and KeyUp Events

The Command Button's KeyPress, KeyDown and KeyUp Events
The events that will be mentioned in the following pages
are commonly used, and without learning about them
you really can't go anywhere in Visual Basic programming.

To try these examples, start a new project (as being
taught in Lesson 1).

Add 1 Command Button to your form. The Command
Button is called by default Command1.

Copy the following code to the code window (you
can copy and paste it using Ctrl + C for copying
and Ctrl + V for pasting):


Private Sub Command1_KeyDown(KeyCode As Integer, Shift As Integer)
Print "KeyDown"
End Sub

Private Sub Command1_KeyPress(KeyAscii As Integer)
Print "KeyPress"
End Sub

Private Sub Command1_KeyUp(KeyCode As Integer, Shift As Integer)
Print "KeyUp"
End Sub


When the Command Button's KeyDown event will be executed,
"KeyDown" will be printed on the form,
When the Command Button's KeyPress event will be executed,
"KeyPress" will be printed on the form, and when
the Command Button's KeyUp event will be executed,
"KeyUp" will be printed on the form.


Run the program, and click the button with the mouse.
Nothing has happened.
It's because the KeyDown, Key_Press, and KeyUp events are
being executed Only when you press a key on the keyboard.

Now press any key on the keyboard, hold it down for few seconds,
and then release it.
Your form will look like this:



Lets see:
The first event that been executed is the KeyDown event,
because "KeyDown" was the first text that been printed on the form.

The second event was KeyPress, and then again KeyDown.
After every KeyDown event that been executed, a KeyPress
event had been executed.

We learnt that when a key is being holded down, the
KeyDown and the KeyPress events are being executed in
this order over and over again, until the key is up again.

When you release the key, the KeyUp event is being executed once