Form keypress conflict with CmdButns in VB6

Want more fun?...add a TextBox to your form.  Now put focus on a button.  The arrows will navigate between controls and NOT fire a KeyDown() event when the BUTTONS have focus.  BUT...when the TextBox gets focus, the arrows will again fire your Forms KeyDown() event.  ;)

Perhaps if you explain the bigger picture we can come up with a solution for you...

It sounds like you're making a game. Keep in mind the keydown event has another issue, and that is that you are at the mercy of your keyboard's auto repeat rate. E.g. when you hold down the left arrow key, the form will receive "Left........leftleftleftleft". That delay is often very troublesome.

Form key_down events have always been a pain in VB. They are only truly reliable if you have nothing but non-focus controls on the form (e.g. pictureboxes or shapes). You *could* use a picturebox instead of a button, and use the Picture1_OnClick() event from there. That would be a quick fix to your problem.

However, there are a number of other (superior) ways to detect and handle keystrokes in a VB game. You game ought to have some kind of a game loop, whether it be a timer, or a tight DO...WHILE loop somewhere. The typical way to detect keystrokes is to keep track of several boolean flags, each corresponding to the state of your relevant keys. Have your main game loop call the WinAPI function GetAsyncKeyState() and determine the current state of the keys you are interested in, and set those boolean flags. Then later in your loop when you need to know the state of a key, you just check the flags.

But again, we need more context.

I don't code games. I have several progs, one of which is a hex editor, that require trapping the 4 arrow keys, which, predictably, move the cursor up/down/left/right. I have had to use 4 picboxes with arrow icons to accomplish this seemingly mundane task. One should not have to call api funcs, dlls, and crude pics of arrows to facilitate key presses. The rest of the keys are trappable, whats so special about the 4 arrow keys?