Key Down Event
Installed With: Full Development System
Class: VI Events
Type: Notify
Generated when the user performs keystrokes on the keyboard.
This event detects all key presses that occur anywhere on the front panel, such as typing text in a string control. If you want to detect a key down event only on a specific control, use the Key Down event in the Control class.
![]() | Note LabVIEW only generates events for the Cluster»All Elements source when the cluster has keyboard focus, not when an individual element inside the cluster has keyboard focus. |
Event Data Fields
Name | Description | ||
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Source | Source of the event. LabVIEW UI refers to any built-in user interface event.
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Type | Type of event that occurred, such as Mouse Down, Value Change, Timeout, and so on. | ||
Time | Value of the millisecond timer when the event occurred. | ||
VIRef | Reference to the VI on which this event occurred. | ||
Char | Integer value that corresponds to the key pressed on the keyboard and represents a character from the current code page that your system uses. You also can modify the data returned by this event data field. Search for code pages on the Microsoft Web site for a listing of the code page tables supported by Windows. | ||
VKey | Enumerated type indicating the virtual key code of the key pressed. Values include ASCII, Shift, NumLock, F1, and so on. You also can modify the data received from this event data field.
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ScanCode | Scan code unique for each key on the keyboard. The values are unique for each physical key, and allow you to match Key Up and Key Down events. | ||
Mods | Cluster of Booleans that contain platform-independent modifiers. LabVIEW returns all platform-dependent modifiers in the PlatMods event data field. For key events, this event returns a Boolean indicating if the event occurred on the numeric keypad. For mouse events, this event returns a Boolean indicating if the event was a double-click. For both events, a Boolean is returned if the platform-independent menu key, such as <Ctrl> on Windows or <Command> on Mac OS, was pressed when the event occurred. For filter events, you can modify the data returned by this event data field. | ||
PlatMods | Cluster of Booleans that contain platform-dependent modifiers. Specifies if platform-dependent keys, such as <Ctrl>, <Shift>, <Alt>, <Command>, and <Option> were held down when the event was triggered. For filter events, you can modify the data returned by this event data field. A key can be both a Mod and PlatMod. For example, <Ctrl> is the platform-independent menu key on Windows, but you also can use it in platform-dependent programming. | ||
FocusObj | A reference to the object that has keyboard focus. When the event is for a control, it might be a sub-component, like a scale, label, and so on, rather than the control itself. You also can modify the data returned by this event data field. |