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Terminal.Gui/docfx/articles/keyboard.md
2020-05-23 20:08:01 -06:00

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Keyboard Event Processing
=========================
Keyboard events are sent by the [Main Loop](mainloop.html) to the
Application class for processing. The keyboard events are sent
exclusively to the current `Toplevel`, this being either the default
that is created when you call `Application.Init`, or one that you
created an passed to `Application.Run(Toplevel)`.
Flow
----
Keystrokes are first processes as hotkeys, then as regular keys, and
there is a final cold post-processing event that is invoked if no view
processed the key.
HotKey Processing
-----------------
Events are first send to all views as a "HotKey", this means that the
`View.ProcessHotKey` method is invoked on the current toplevel, which
in turns propagates this to all the views in the hierarchy. If any
view decides to process the event, no further processing takes place.
This is how hotkeys for buttons are implemented. For example, the
keystroke "Alt-A" is handled by Buttons that have a hot-letter "A" to
activate the button.
Regular Processing
------------------
Unlike the hotkey processing, the regular processing is only sent to
the currently focused view in the focus chain.
The regular key processing is only invoked if no hotkey was caught.
Cold-key Processing
-------------------
This stage only is executed if the focused view did not process the
event, and is broadcast to all the views in the Toplevel.
This method can be overwritten by views that want to provide
accelerator functionality (Alt-key for example), but without
interefering with normal ProcessKey behavior.