How to capture keyboard input without a text box in Eto

Question

I have a project (Void) using the Eto GUI framework for .NET and Mono. I am building a Vim-like text editor which will have at least some of the modes which Vim has (and yes, I know, one does not simply...).

The basic structure of my GUI is just a Form whose Content is a Drawable, so that I have maximum flexibility over something which does not adhere to the normal styles of GUI apps. I have successfully attached a KeyUp handler to the form when I stubbed out Normal mode and I have the ZQ command closing the window.

KeyUp += (sender, eventArgs) =>
{
    var keyPress = eventArgs.AsVoidKeyPress();
    if (keyPress != null)
    {
        handler(keyPress);
    }
};

That's fine and dandy for Normal mode, but for other modes such as Command Mode and Insert Mode, I want to be able to catch special key combinations (i.e. ones that use CTRL) but other than that I just want to capture stuff as text. This will allow me to handle Unicode, etc. In other words, I don't simply want to translate keystrokes back into text myself.

I tried to attach a TextInput event.

Console.WriteLine("I see this, but...");
TextInput += (sender, eventArgs) =>
{
    Console.WriteLine("...I don't see this, no matter what I type.");
};

I even commented out my subscription to the KeyUp event to see if that is conflicting, but I just don't get any response. Is this because I am attaching it directly to the form? Is there any way to capture text input without actually using a text box?

Answer 1

The TextInput event has been fully implemented in the develop branch (upcoming 2.1 release), which you can use via the myget feed. This should capture text input from Drawable and other controls like TextBox, etc. It was used to implement the new MaskedTextBox, which is just a subclass of TextBox.

It shouldn't conflict with the KeyDown/KeyUp events, unless you set the event argument's Handled property to true