Using user input from keyboard in UWA

Question

I am working on an app in C# for Rpi 3 (running windows IoT Core). It will need to be able to get input from a keyboard (phisycal, not onscreen) and be able to put that input in a string so it can easily be shown on a monitor (using xaml).

However I am not sure how to capture that input. Is this baked into the OS already? If not, what do I need to do to ask for input and put that input in a string? Maybe the answer is very simple but as of yet I've not really been able to find a good answer to this question. Been working with C# for about 5 weeks now so still a bit of a noob..

Cheers

Answer 1

Keyboard input should 'just work'- you shouldn't have to do anything aside from plugging the keyboard in.

Quick example, starting from a blank UWP application:

XAML (Mainpage.xaml):

<Grid Background="{ThemeResource ApplicationPageBackgroundThemeBrush}">
    <Grid.RowDefinitions>
        <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/>
        <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/>
    </Grid.RowDefinitions>
    <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
        <ColumnDefinition Width="Auto"/>
        <ColumnDefinition Width="Auto"/>
    </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
    <!-- Box to take user input -->
    <TextBox Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="0" Name="MyTextBox" Width="400"/>
    <!-- Button to confirm input - note the Click event handler -->
    <Button Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="1" Name="MyButton" Width="60" Height="60" Content="OK" Click="MyButton_Click"/>
    <!-- TextBlock displays text from TextBox on Button click -->
    <TextBlock Grid.Row="1" Grid.ColumnSpan="2" Name="MyTextBlock" />
</Grid>

Codebehind/C# (Mainpage.xaml.cs):

public sealed partial class MainPage : Page
{
    public MainPage()
    {
        this.InitializeComponent();
    }

    //Click event handler for MyButton
    private void MyButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
    {
        //Take the string value Text from MyTextBox (the user input) and assign it to the string value Text for MyTextBlock
        MyTextBlock.Text = MyTextBox.Text;
    }
}