Title: Differentiating Between the Two ENTER Keys
Question: How to find difference between the two ENTER keys?
Answer:
An application may find it useful to differentiate between the user pressing the ENTER key on the standard keyboard and the ENTER key on the numeric keypad. Either action creates a WM_KEYDOWN message and a WM_KEYUP message with wParam set to the virtual key code VK_RETURN. When the application passes these messages to TranslateMessage, the application receives a WM_CHAR message with wParam set to the corresponding ASCII code 13.
To differentiate between the two ENTER keys, test bit 24 of lParam sent with the three messages listed above. Bit 24 is set to 1 if the key is an extended key; otherwise, bit 24 is set to 0 (zero).
Because the keys in the numeric keypad (along with the function keys) are extended keys, pressing ENTER on the numeric keypad results in bit 24 of lParam being set, while pressing the ENTER key on the standard keyboard results in bit 24 clear.
The following code sample demonstrates differentiating between these two ENTER keys:
procedure TForm1.WMKeyDown(var Message: TWMKeyDown);
begin
inherited;
case Message.CharCode of
VK_RETURN: begin // ENTER pressed
if (Message.KeyData and $1000000 0) then // Test bit 24 of lParam
begin
// ENTER on numeric keypad
end
else
begin
// ENTER on the standard keyboard
end;
end;
end;
end;