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Quickstart

HotkeyUtility is designed and intended to be intuitive and easy to use. This page will show a couple of quick examples to get you started using hotkeys in your WPF applications.

Creating a Hotkey

Setting up a hotkey in your application is easy. We first need to declare the HotkeyUtility XAML namespace in the root tag of your XAML file:

MainWindow.xaml
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<Window xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
        xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
        xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"

        xmlns:hu="clr-namespace:HotkeyUtility.Controls;assembly=HotkeyUtility">
</Window>

Once the namespace is declared, you can use the HotkeyBinding object (which inherits from InputBinding) that's provided to you by HotkeyUtility:

Simply add it to the InputBindings property of the Window:

MainWindow.xaml
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<Window xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
        xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
        xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"
        xmlns:hu="clr-namespace:HotkeyUtility.Controls;assembly=HotkeyUtility">
    <Window.InputBindings>
        <hu:HotkeyBinding Combination="Alt + Space"
                          Pressed="HotkeyBinding_Pressed"/>
    </Window.InputBindings>
</Window>

Once that's set up, your hotkey is now registered and ready to be used. Whenever the user simultaneously presses Alt+Space, the event handler called HotkeyBinding_Pressed in the codebehind will be triggered:

MainWindow.xaml.cs
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using System;
using HotkeyUtility.Input;

public void HotkeyBinding_Pressed(object sender, HotkeyEventArgs e)
{
    Console.WriteLine("A hotkey was pressed");
}

Hotkeys and MVVM

If you're using an MVVM framework (like Caliburn.Micro, for example), there's a chance that attaching an event handler to the Pressed event of HotkeyBinding won't work.

If that's the case for you, you'll need to use the VisualHotkey control provided by HotkeyUtility. It's important to point out that the name is a bit of a misnomer; VisualHotkey has no visual properties so it won't take up any space in your application.

You can use it in your XML file like in this example (which uses Caliburn.Micro):

ShellView.xaml
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<Window xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
        xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
        xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"
        xmlns:hu="clr-namespace:HotkeyUtility.Controls;assembly=HotkeyUtility"
        xmlns:cal="http://www.caliburnproject.org">
    <Grid>
        <hu:VisualHotkey Combination="Alt + Space"
                         cal:Message.Attach="[Event Pressed] = [Action VisualHotkey_Pressed($this, $eventArgs)]"/>
    </Grid>
</Window>

Info

One possible reason why it might not work is because InputBinding doesn't inherit from FrameworkElement.

You Can Still Use Commands

If you're more comfortable using the ICommand interface and you'd rather use a command than an event handler, that's also available as an option for both the HotkeyBinding and the VisualHotkey:

ShellView.xaml
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<Window xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
        xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
        xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"
        xmlns:hu="clr-namespace:HotkeyUtility.Controls;assembly=HotkeyUtility">
    <Window.InputBindings>
        <hu:HotkeyBinding Combination="Alt + Space"
                          Command="{Binding MyCommand}"/>
    </Window.InputBindings>

    <Grid>
        <hu:VisualHotkey Combination="Shift + M"
                         Command="{Binding MyOtherCommand}"/>
    </Grid>
</Window>