Delphi 6 Escape key not working - delphi

Question

I'm experiencing a weird issue with trapping the escape key in our main application. I created a simple test form to see what might be going wrong, since pressing the escape key was previously working. So far, it's still not working and I'm unsure why.
unit Unit1;
interface
uses
Windows, Messages, SysUtils, Variants, Classes, Graphics, Controls, Forms,
Dialogs, StdCtrls;
type
TForm1 = class(TForm)
Button1: TButton;
Button2: TButton;
procedure Button1KeyDown(Sender: TObject; var Key: Word;
Shift: TShiftState);
procedure Button2KeyDown(Sender: TObject; var Key: Word;
Shift: TShiftState);
procedure FormKeyDown(Sender: TObject; var Key: Word;
Shift: TShiftState);
procedure Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
procedure FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
private
{ Private declarations }
procedure OnAppMessage(var Msg: TMsg; var Handled: Boolean);
public
{ Public declarations }
end;
var
Form1: TForm1;
implementation
{$R *.dfm}
procedure TForm1.OnAppMessage(var Msg: TMsg; var Handled: Boolean);
begin
if Msg.message = WM_KeyDown then
showmessage('MSG');
end;
procedure TForm1.Button1KeyDown(Sender: TObject; var Key: Word;
Shift: TShiftState);
begin
if key = VK_ESCAPE then
showmessage('ESC');
end;
procedure TForm1.Button2KeyDown(Sender: TObject; var Key: Word;
Shift: TShiftState);
begin
if key = VK_ESCAPE then
showmessage('ESC');
end;
procedure TForm1.FormKeyDown(Sender: TObject; var Key: Word;
Shift: TShiftState);
begin
if key = vk_escape then
Button1Click(sender);
end;
procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
begin
showmessage('Button1Click');
end;
procedure TForm1.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
begin
Application.OnMessage := OnAppMessage;
button1.Cancel := True; // set at design time as well
self.KeyPreview := True; // set at design time as well
end;
end.
For some reason when pressing escape, it doesn't break on the point I placed in button1.OnKeyDown or even for the Application message WM_KEYDOWN -- all other keys break here. I tested my keyboard just to make sure the key was functioning and it's good.
Is there something that might be causing this or that I'm doing wrong?
Thanks.

Answer 1

Add this to your component's class:
procedure HandleDlgCode(var Msg:TMessage); message WM_GETDLGCODE;
and then in the implementation section:
procedure TComponentClass.HandleDlgCode(var Msg:TMessage);
var
M: PMsg;
begin
Msg.Result := DLGC_WANTALLKEYS or DLGC_WANTESCAPE or DLGC_WANTCHARS or DLGC_HASSETSEL;
if Msg.lParam <> 0 then
begin
M := PMsg(Msg.lParam);
case M.message of
WM_KEYESCAPE, WM_CHAR:
begin
Perform(M.message, M.wParam, M.lParam);
Msg.Result := Msg.Result or DLGC_WANTMESSAGE;
end;
end;
end
else
Msg.Result := Msg
end;

Answer 2

This is because you set the Cancel property for Button1 to True. Comment the line:
button1.Cancel := True;
and you will be able to catch Escape key. These wo ar mutualy exclusive.

Answer 3

Try rebooting first. It fixed the issue.