Keyboard shortcuts in toolbar

Question

I am writing a WPF application with just a few commands, so I am using a toolbar, without a menu. I would like to assign ctrl-key shortcuts to the buttons on the toolbar. Is there a simple way to do this, without having to create routed commands or ICommands just to support the shortcuts? I would prefer to do it in XAML, rather than code-behind.

Answer 1

You do need code, one event tells the command if it can be executed (no more than a few lines usually), the other what to do, so every control bound to it does the same thing. Here's a very simple example:

XAML:

<UserControl x:Class="WPFTests.AppCommands"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    Height="300" Width="300">
    <UserControl.CommandBindings>
     <CommandBinding Command="ApplicationCommands.New" CanExecute="CommandBinding_CanExecute" Executed="CommandBinding_Executed" />
    </UserControl.CommandBindings>
    <Grid>
     <Grid.RowDefinitions>
      <RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
      <RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
     </Grid.RowDefinitions>
     <CheckBox Grid.Row="0" Height="16" Name="checkBoxCanExecute" Margin="8" IsChecked="true">Can execute</CheckBox>
     <Button Grid.Row="1" Height="24" Padding="8,0,8,0" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="8" Command="ApplicationCommands.New">ApplicationCommand.New</Button>
    </Grid>
</UserControl>

C#

using System.Windows; using System.Windows.Controls; using System.Windows.Input;

namespace WPFTests
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Interaction logic for AppCommands.xaml
    /// </summary>
    public partial class AppCommands : UserControl
    {
     public AppCommands()
     {
      InitializeComponent();
     }

     private void CommandBinding_CanExecute(object sender, CanExecuteRoutedEventArgs e)
     {
      e.CanExecute = (bool)checkBoxCanExecute.IsChecked;
     }

     private void CommandBinding_Executed(object sender, ExecutedRoutedEventArgs e)
     {
      MessageBox.Show("New executed");
     }
    }
}

Answer 2

I have come to the conclusion that WPF doesn't provide a simple way to add a Ctrl-key to a button. I solved my problem by trapping keypresses in the code-behind, and then invoking the appropriate ICommand--the ICommand that the corresponding button's Command property is bound to. It's a bit of an ugly hack, but it works, and it seems to be the best approach under the circumstances.