How can I get raw keyboard input in VB.NET?

Question

I know that I can use the KeyDown , KeyUp , and KeyPress events to handle keyboard input, but the input uses ASCII input, meaning that it's not smooth (ie when I hold down a key, the events are repeated as if I was typing something: triggering it once, waiting half a second, and only then repeating). How can I get raw key input from the keyboard that directly checks whether or not a key is pressed down, instead of looking at the keyboard buffer?

Answer 1

It's only the KeyPress event that looks at the keyboard buffer.

When a key is pressed the KeyDown event is triggered, and if it's not a control key (shift, ctrl, alt etc.) it also produces a character for the keyboard buffer which triggers the KeyPress event.

As long as the key is pressed, more characters will be generated for the keyboard buffer, each triggering another KeyPress event.

When a key is released, the KeyUp event is triggered.

To keep track of keys that are pressed, you use the KeyDown and KeyUp events. There is no way to directly check if a key is pressed or not, the keyboard only communicates with the computer by sending down and up events for keys.

Note that the KeyDown event is not always followed by a KeyUp event for the same key, but the events can overlap. Typing an uppercase A for example typically produces these KeyDown and KeyUp events:

KeyDown for shift
KeyDown for a
KeyUp for a
KeyUp for shift