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I have some VGUI panels that receive keyboard input, but I can't figure out how to capture the ESC key. They inherit from vgui::Frame. The problem is when you press ESC, it hides the panel without executing my close code, which causes a crash on HL2 exit and some other problems for me.

Is there a way to capture the ESC button to change the default behavior from hiding the panel to calling the OnCommand("close") method?

Try

Code: Select all

void <YourPanel>::OnKeyCodeTyped( vgui::KeyCode code )
{
   if ( code == KEY_ESCAPE   )
   {
      // Do nothing or tell the user it isn't possible?
      Msg("BEEP BOOP DISABLED\n");
   }
   else
   {
      // Make sure everything else gets sent properly
      BaseClass::OnKeyCodeTyped( code );
   }
}

The Esc key is swallowed up before the keyevent even fires iirc.

That is correct zombie@comp. Pressing escape does not make the OnKeyCodePressed method fire.

If you override the OnKeyTyped message of Frame instead, you can monitor the escape key being pressed but doesn't look like you can stop its default behavior.

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void CPopUpMenu::OnKeyTyped(wchar_t unichar)
{
   if( unichar+0 == 27 )
      this->OnCommand("Close");
}

SM Sith Lord wrote:If you override the OnKeyTyped message of Frame instead, you can monitor the escape key being pressed but doesn't look like you can stop its default behavior.

Code: Select all

void CPopUpMenu::OnKeyTyped(wchar_t unichar)
{
   if( unichar+0 == 27 )
      this->OnCommand("Close");
}

Inside ClientModeShared::KeyInput (or your derived mod implementation) you need to check for KEY_ESCAPE and return 0. That will suppress the default behavior.

Thanks for the lead. That ClientModeShared::KeyInput gets called for every button I press EXCEPT for the escape key, so still no luck.

Hooking into the OnKeyTyped method like in my code example only seems to work for a specific panel too, which is strange. Seems like the engine is guarding the escape key with its life

Ok, so the seemly randomness of the OnKeyTyped method being called is because when you click on a textbox or anything else in the panel, that specific object captures the OnKeyTyped msg instead.

Anyways, what I really needed to do to capture the escape key being pressed was add this to my panel:

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   MESSAGE_FUNC( Close, "Close" );
   MESSAGE_FUNC( CloseModal, "CloseModal" );

When ESCAPE is pressed, the CloseModal (and I assume Close for non-modal frames) gets called on your panel. Do your clean up in there.

To prevent the engine from automatically handling the ESCAPE key, you need this to happen:

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bool CHLClient::HandleUiToggle() { return true; }