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Retrieving the state of the Shift, Alt and Ctrl keys, at any time

Retrieving the state of the Shift, Alt and Ctrl keys, at any time

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You can know the state of the Shift, Alt and Control keys at any time, not just from inside a Keyxxx event. The shared property Control.ModifierKeys returns a bit coded value that identifies which of those keys are pressed, and you can use the And bit operator if a specific key is pressed. The following code shows an example:

Dim isShiftPressed As Boolean = (Control.ModifierKeys And Keys.Shift) <> 0Dim isAltPressed As Boolean = (Control.ModifierKeys And Keys.Alt) <> 0Dim isControlPressed As Boolean = (Control.ModifierKeys And Keys.Control) <> 0MessageBox.Show("Shift pressed: " & isShiftPressed & Environment.NewLine & _    "Alt pressed:" & isAltPressed & Environment.NewLine & "Control pressed:" & _    isControlPressed)

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