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Q145677: FIX: ARROW and TAB keys Stop Working in MDI Child Form

Article: Q145677
Product(s): Microsoft Visual Basic for Windows
Version(s): 4.0
Operating System(s): 
Keyword(s): kbGrpDSVB
Last Modified: 22-DEC-2000

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The information in this article applies to:

- Microsoft Visual Basic Enterprise Edition, 16-bit, for Windows, version 4.0 
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SYMPTOMS
========

When you have an MDI parent form with a toolbar and one MDI child form, pressing
a toolbar button can prevent the arrow keys and tab key from functioning as
cursor navigation keys on the MDI child form. You can still type text into the
text boxes on the child form, but the cursor can be moved only by using the
mouse pointer.

CAUSE
=====

The toolbar control is capturing all navigation key events, preventing the text
box controls on the MDI child form from processing them.

RESOLUTION
==========

To work around this problem, force the toolbar to lose focus. This will prevent
the toolbar from trapping the navigation key events. Add the following code to
the MouseUp event of the toolbar control:

     Private Sub Toolbar1_MouseUp(Button As Integer, Shift As Integer, _
     x As Single, y As Single)

         Me.SetFocus

     End Sub

STATUS
======

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a bug in the Microsoft products listed at the
beginning of this article. This bug has been fixed in Visual Basic 5.0 and 6.0.

MORE INFORMATION
================

Steps to Reproduce
------------------

1. Start a new project in Visual Basic. Form1 is created by default.

2. Place two text boxes on form1.

3. Press F4 to bring up Visual Basic's property page and set form1's MDIChild
  property to true.

4. Add a MDI parent form to your project, by selecting "MDI Form" from the
  "Insert" menu.

5. Add a Toolbar control to your MDI form.

6. Add the following code to the MDIForm_Load event of the MDI Form:

     Private Sub MDIForm_Load()

         Toolbar1.Buttons.Add
         Form1.Show

     End Sub

7. Press the F5 key or click Start on the Run menu to start the program.

8. Click the toolbar button.

9. Click a text box, to give it keyboard focus. Now try using the cursor or tab
  keys to reposition the cursor.

Additional query words: kbVBp400bug kbVBp500fix kbVBp600fix kbVBp kbdsd kbDSupport kbMDI kbControl

======================================================================
Keywords          : kbGrpDSVB 
Technology        : kbVBSearch kbAudDeveloper kbVB400Search kbVB400 kbVB16bitSearch
Version           : :4.0
Issue type        : kbbug
Solution Type     : kbfix

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