never lose focus

**marsjell** · 07-31-2002, 06:29 AM

anybody know how to make sure that my VBapp allways has the focus? I've tried this:

sub form1_lostfocus
me.setfocus
end sub

but that doesn't work, in fact the whole lostfocus function does not work, I tried
sub form1_lostfocus
msgbox "blabla"
end sub

and it never gave me a messagebox telling me to blabla...

thanks!

**rammic** · 07-31-2002, 07:21 AM

I assume by "always have the focus" that you mean that you want your program to always be the topmost form. If that's what you're after, check out this link:

http://216.26.168.92/tips/tip4.html

I think there's another API call that you can make to do this, but I can't think of it off the top of my head.

**marsjell** · 07-31-2002, 09:20 AM

no that doesn't work, even if the app is allways the topmost app, that doesn't mean that it has the focus (is the current active form).

Problem is that I use my keyboard to handle my app, but if it doesn't have the focus I'm handling another as well as my app.

example:
my app starts up winamp. if winamp has the focus and I press B winamp will go to the next songs & my app will do whatever I've programmed "under" B. I don't want winamp to respond to my key-touching...

am I clear? (my english isn't all that...)

**MGP3Car** · 07-31-2002, 10:26 AM

marsjell,
I don't know VB but in C++, a neat trick is to get a handle to the external programs window proc (FindWindow etc.), save the handle away, replace the window proc handle with your own proc handle (SetWindowLong) and in the new proc pass any messages that you don't want to handle back to the original proc (CallWndProg).
I used this as I couldn't get get SetWindowFocus to work.
I don't know if you can do this lower level stuff in VB.
~MGP3Car

**marsjell** · 07-31-2002, 12:34 PM

Hi,
well the low level stuff is possible in VB, but I don't fully understand what you are saying, also I want other programms to ignore the keystrokes, only my app may respond.

now when I hit a key and winamp has the focus, winamp responds to the keyhit (obviously) and so does my app... my app should respond, but winamp shopuldn't

**cenwesi** · 07-31-2002, 03:40 PM

Originally posted by MGP3Car
marsjell,
I don't know VB but in C++, a neat trick is to get a handle to the external programs window proc (FindWindow etc.), save the handle away, replace the window proc handle with your own proc handle (SetWindowLong) and in the new proc pass any messages that you don't want to handle back to the original proc (CallWndProg).
I used this as I couldn't get get SetWindowFocus to work.
I don't know if you can do this lower level stuff in VB.
~MGP3Car

yes u can....he might need to define a structure
...let me look for the api call... i use that in C2/3/4
Or you can go to this site http://www.allapi.net/ and download the API-Guide app there...tons of VB stuff with that app..

**marsjell** · 07-31-2002, 05:11 PM

thanks cenwesi,

the api-guide is great, haven't solved my problem yet but.......

**MGP3Car** · 07-31-2002, 07:58 PM

marsjell,
Basically the idea is that every program has a message handler (WndProc), this takes in events such as quit, getting focus, paint requests and keyboard input.
If you can change which program (or sub proc?) gets called on these events then you can 'steal' the keyboard input.
Replace the external programs WndProc with your own and then you will always effectively have focus.
Of course it's not as easy as that because the external program will still want to handle messages that you are not interested in, so any message that you don't want to handle should be sent directly to the original, so you will need to store away the original reference before you overwrite it.

winamp e.g.

Normally:
messages->winamp's WndProc
With your mesage handler:
messages->your WndProc->winamp's WndProc

If you want the message then don't pass it on to winamp.

If you would like the c++ code that I used for Winamp then I'll post it, or if cenwesi could post some Cobra VB code then that would obviously be better for you.

Hope this explains it.

~MGP3Car

**marsjell** · 08-01-2002, 05:23 PM

Hi, if you would be willing to post that part of your code please... I understand in theorie what you're saying, but have no idea how to do this in practise.

thanks!

**Gutter** · 08-01-2002, 06:02 PM

Try this:

<CODE>
Private Declare Function GetAsyncKeyState Lib "user32" (ByVal vKey As Long) As Integer

Private Function GetKey(ByVal vKey As KeyCodeConstants) As Boolean
GetKey = GetAsyncKeyState(vKey) And &H8000
End Function

Private Sub Timer1_Timer()
If GetKey(vbKey1) Then
Debug.Print "Down 1"
ElseIf GetKey(vbKey2) Then
Debug.Print "Down 10"
ElseIf GetKey(vbKey3) Then
Debug.Print "Down 100"
ElseIf GetKey(vbKey5) Then
Debug.Print "Play/Pause"
ElseIf GetKey(vbKey7) Then
Debug.Print "Up 1"
ElseIf GetKey(vbKey8) Then
Debug.Print "Up 10"
ElseIf GetKey(vbKey9) Then
Debug.Print "Up 100"
End If
End Sub

</CODE>

Add a timer control which has an interval of at least 100ms. This will do what I think you're asking.

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