Gather keyboard input

In UWP, this would be how I get keyboard input for a Xaml application …

Microsoft.UI.Xaml.Window.Current.CoreWindow.KeyDown += CoreWindow_KeyDown;

This doesn’t work for WinUI, with output… Microsoft.UI.Xaml.Window.Current.get returned null. How do we get keyboard input for the Window?

I should mention that gathering from a control, such as SwapChainPanel also doesn’t work. It’s a pretty weird design for sure.

[Gavin-Williams]

My app isn’t UWP, but I’m using as much UWP code as possible, because really, all I want is UWP (with .Net 5 + NoOverlays + Steam support) which is only available via the desktop app model. If .Net 5 gets UWP and UWP get’s Overlay suspension and .Net 5 compilation to get away from .Net native then I will likely go back to UWP. But we are stuck on what’s being called Desktop - even though UWP is desktop as well.

From my perspective, Microsoft have introduced a new window model - the HWND - it’s something that was used historically, many years ago, before my time, and they’ve brought it back, because nostalgia. It’s weird because I’ve been using CoreWindow and I thought with .Net 5 we were getting a new unified App/Window model and framework. Instead, I have to dig into god knows where to get keyboard input, and I need to write redundant code to support this legacy thing.

“CoreWindow has sandbox restrictions” - What sandbox restrictions are you referring to that are related to how we get input? How does providing CoreWindow functionality to desktop apps break … well anything?

And none of this helps with creating a sensible, consistent and modern way to get keyboard input from the Window or SwapChainPanel. I mean, I’m sorry, but wrapping an SCP in a Grid, when it’s already a Grid just to get keyboard input because the Window doesn’t give me keyboard input is just plain goofy. Unless there is something I’m missing?

[mdtauk]

My app isn’t UWP, but I’m using as much UWP code as possible…

Well for the foreseeable, CoreWindow is off limits. That is why it returns NULL

You will have to do it the Win32 way until more fundamental changes come, probably through Reunion APIs