C# / WinForms / Make Main form's menu accessible from child form (shortcut keys)

Question

I've got a form with a menu strip that has keyboard shortcut's. Keyboard works as expected. Then I add another form that is owned by the main form (child.Owner = main). When this form has focus I can't access the menu on the main form (using the keyboard).

I guess this is expected behavior, but what if I wanted to allow access to the menu on the main form when the child form have focus, how do I do that?

I don't feel like manually set up and handle all keyboard events and bind them to the correct action, is this the only way?

Cheers, Eq

No this is not an MDI application – eq_ Dec 12 '11 at 14:29 — eq_, Dec 12 '11 at 14:29
Then you need manually send keyboard events to parent form. – Renatas M. Dec 12 '11 at 14:54 — Renatas M., Dec 12 '11 at 14:54

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 12 '11 at 14:19

0

set property KeyPerview of child form True.

answered Dec 12 '11 at 14:19

MRM

435
2
10

That didn't work, should it really? I though that was used by a form to get input before any child controls. – eq_ Dec 12 '11 at 14:30

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 19 '11 at 05:54

You can try out the following - it will add the menu to the child form, but still run the event handlers in the parent form:

        Form2 childForm = new Form2();
        childForm.Controls.Add(menuStrip1);
        childForm.MainMenuStrip = this.menuStrip1;
        childForm.Show();

C# / WinForms / Make Main form's menu accessible from child form (shortcut keys)

2 Answers2