Using Enter Key

Khaled Shagrouni, December 23 2000

Arabic

Its hard to get users leave their old habits.

Published in Delphi3000.com
and in www.sourcer.ur (Russian),
some whwere (Chinees)

When ever I install a new application; I heard the users asking why Enter key doesn’t behave like Tab key? (Seems Windows didn’t change some habits inherited from the old text mode culture). So I come up with this routine, which can be planted inside the KeyDown event of the data entry form.

I am sure that many others made a better solution than mine; but some times doing the thing by your self is faster than searching for it elsewhere.

procedure TForm1.EditKeyPress(Sender: TObject; var Key: Char);
begin
  if key = #13 then key := #0;
end;

procedure TForm1.FormKeyDown(Sender: TObject; var Key: Word;
  Shift: TShiftState);
var
  ACtrl: TWinControl;
  k: TKeyPressEvent;
begin

  if key = 13 then
    begin
      ACtrl := ActiveControl;
      if ACtrl is TCustomMemo then exit;

      if ACtrl is TEdit then
        begin
          if assigned(TEdit(ACtrl).onKeyPress) then
            k:= TEdit(ACtrl).OnKeyPress;
          TEdit(ACtrl).OnKeyPress := EditKeyPress;
        end;

      repeat
        ACtrl:= FindNextControl(ACtrl,true,true,false);
      until (ACtrl is TCustomEdit) or
      (ACtrl is TCustomComboBox) or
      (ACtrl is TCustomListBox) or
      (ACtrl is TCustomCheckBox) or
      (ACtrl is TRadioButton);

      if ACtrl is TEdit then
        begin
          if assigned(K)  then
            TEdit(ACtrl).OnKeyPress := K;
        end;

      ACtrl.SetFocus ;
    end;

end;
            

Don't forget to set the KeyPreview property of the form to true.

As you can see; my code relies on FindNextControl function which make a nice job to bring the next available control.

since all my data entry forms in many of my applications are inherited from one desendent form so i just put the above code in that single form and voila; all my applications celebrate the event.