How do I capture Keys.F1 regardless of the focused control on a form?

Solution 1:

Yes, indeed there is. The correct way for the form to handle key events regardless of the control that currently has the input focus is to override the ProcessCmdKey method of your form class:

protected override bool ProcessCmdKey(ref Message msg, Keys keyData)
{
    if (keyData == Keys.F1)
    {
        MessageBox.Show("You pressed the F1 key");
        return true;    // indicate that you handled this keystroke
    }

    // Call the base class
    return base.ProcessCmdKey(ref msg, keyData);
}

You return true to indicate that you handled the keystroke and don't want it to be passed on to other controls. If you do want it to be passed on to the event handlers for other controls, simply return false.

And you're best off ignoring the KeyPreview property. That's an anachronism from the VB 6 days and not really the preferred way of doing this in the .NET world. Further reading: Disadvantage of setting Form.KeyPreview = true?

Solution 2:

Set the form's KeyPreview to true. This will make sure the form get the keypress messages first and if you handle it, you can set e.Handled = true so it doesn't passed down to the controls.

Solution 3:

Turn on KeyPreview and every key press in the form will get routed through it's key event handlers first.

Solution 4:

Another way is to Override the ProcessCmdKey function http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.control.processcmdkey(v=VS.100).aspx