On Key Press, Whilst UserForm In Background - excel

Question

I know we can detect if a key is pressed e.g. KeyAscii = 8, however I have only seen this done on events whilst the userform app is the window in operation.
Is it possible to have the window in the background e.g. whilst I am using IE, I can press CTRL + 0 and my app recognizes it and does an action?

Answer 1

At least to my own knowledge the answer is - it's not possible, but..
1. Things we need to know
Let's get some facts straight before we do any coding:
The excel application will not be able to execute any code while the Window object is in xlMinimzed state
So basically as soon as the user will close, minimize or even tab out of the Application, we no longer will be able to detect any OnKey (or any other) events, as the currently active application (ie. browser) takes precedence over the excel Application
hence CTRL+0 will now zoom out of the page as it's the browser's default behaviour.
With that being said, we can do at least some things to get close to at least some form of usefulness out of this.
2. The Application Layout
Since you have not provided specific application details, I created this mockup:
A Worksheet consisting of a single CommandButton, that launches the UserForm1
Private Sub CommandButton1_Click()
UserForm1.Show
End Sub
A Module named Module1 which contains a simple hello world message (for the OnKey event)
Public Sub hello()
MsgBox "Hello world!"
End Sub
And the UserForm1 which contains the code for our OnKey handling
Private Sub UserForm_Activate()
With ActiveWindow
.WindowState = xlNormal
' we need to change window state to xlNormal
' xlMaximized would result in width/height property changing error
' and with xlMinimized our Onkey would not work
.Width = 0
.Height = 0
End With
Range("A1").Select
' we need a range selected, otherwise Application OnKey will not fire
Application.OnKey "^0", "Module1.hello" ' launches hello world procedure
Me.Hide
End Sub
Now that's enough to have the window (almost) minimized and respond to a keypress
3. If we want to show the UserForm while maintaing functionality
Now let's say we want the UserForm while hiding the rest of the excel Application in the background.
In order to do this, we need to:
Change the UserForm to vbModeless
To do this, select the UserForm object and show properties (F4)
Remove the Me.Hide line from our UserForm1 code
Private Sub UserForm_Activate()
With ActiveWindow
.WindowState = xlNormal
.Width = 0
.Height = 0
End With
Range("A1").Select
Application.OnKey "^0", "Module1.hello"
' Me.Hide <- remove me
End Sub
That leaves us with the following fucntionality
If there are any suggestions for improvement / optimization I'd be
happy to know as this question intrigued me quite a bit.
I'll try to keep the answer updated!