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Keyboard Support

Updated on Sep 15, 2025

RadGridView exposes several useful properties and events, which can help you control the keyboard interaction and get notified when keyboard events occur. Moreover, using the keyboard you can perform some common tasks, such as:

  • Change the selection—Use the arrow keys to change your selection. To select multiple rows hold the Shift\Ctrl key pressed and use the arrow keys or the mouse to select the desired rows.
  • Sort by multiple columns—Hold the Shift key pressed and click all column headers by which you wish to sort your data.
  • Sort the current column—Press F3 to change the SortState property of the current column. You can also hold the Shift key while pressing F3 to add, update, or remove the CurrentColumn from the sorting.
  • Filter the current column— Press the F5 key to open the filtering popup or the filtering button's drop-down menu depending on the FilteringMode property.
  • Group the current column— Press F7 to group/ungroup the current column.
  • Start cell edit—Press F2 and the current cell will enter in edit mode.
  • End cell edit—Press Enter while the cell is in edit mode. This will confirm the changes you've made.
  • Cancel cell edit—Press Escape while the cell is in edit mode. This will rollback the changes you've made.
  • Add new row—Press Insert and new row will be inserted automatically.
  • Delete existing row—Users can delete (if supported by the collection assigned to the ItemsSource of RadGridView) selected items using DELETE key. This feature can be controlled with RadGridView's CanUserDeleteRows property. Additional to this, the delete command won't be executed if the IsReadOnly property of RadGridView is true or the selected row is in edit mode.

In case you require to utilize different commands corresponding to the keyboard interaction, you may take advantage of the IKeyboardCommandProvider interface and implement your custom logic. Please check this article for further information.

In the following table you can find some of the actions and the respective combination that invokes them:

HotkeyCommandAction
EnterRadGridViewCommands.CommitEditCommit the changes(edit mode) and select next row
EnterRadGridViewCommands.CommitEditSelect next row
F2RadGridViewCommands.BeginEditPut current cell in edit mode
F3RadGridViewCommands.SortColumnChange the SortingState of the CurrentColumn
Shift + F3RadGridViewCommands.SortAdditionalColumnAdd/update/remove the CurrentColumn from the sorting
F5RadGridViewCommands.FilterColumnOpen the filtering popup or the button's drop-down depending on the FilteringMode property
F7RadGridViewCommands.GroupColumnGroup/ungroup the CurrentColumn
EscRadGridViewCommands.CancelCellEditCancel the editing of the current cell
InsertRadGridViewCommands.BeginInsertInsert new row
DeleteRadGridViewCommands.DeleteDelete selected row
Left keyRadGridViewCommands.MoveLeftFocus next cell on the left
Right KeyRadGridViewCommands.MoveRightFocus next cell on the right
Down KeyRadGridViewCommands.MoveDownFocus next cell below
Up KeyRadGridViewCommands.MoveUpFocus next cell above
Page UpRadGridViewCommands.MoveTopFocus first cell
Page DownRadGridViewCommands.MoveBottomFocuses first cell of last row
HomeRadGridViewCommands.MoveHomeFocus first cell of selected row
EndRadGridViewCommands.MoveEndFocus last cell of selected row
TabRadGridViewCommands.MoveNextFocuses next cell
Tab + ShiftRadGridViewCommands.MovePreviousFocuses previous cell
Ctrl + CRadGridViewCommands.CopyCopy text
Ctrl + VRadGridViewCommands.PastePaste text
Ctrl + FRadGridViewCommands.SearchShow Search Panel
SpaceRadGridViewCommands.CollapseHierarchyItemCollapse a particular item in the hierarchy
SpaceRadGridViewCommands.ExpandHierarchyItemExpand a particular item in the hierarchy

The actions might vary depending on the mode of RadGridView and different property combinations.

You can find more information regarding RadGridView`s commands in the Commands Overview article.

Properties

  • Set the IsTabStop property to include/exclude the control in the tab navigation cycle. If this property is set to True, then the control will be included; if it is False it will be skipped.

  • The TabIndex property defines the index of the control in the tab navigation cycle. The lower the number is, the earlier the control will be focused while navigating using the Tab key. If you set this property, do not forget to set IsTabStop to True.

  • The TabStopMode property of the column denotes if its cells could gain focus with the TAB key navigation.

Events

Here is a list of the common keyboard events exposed by the RadGridView, GridViewRow and GridViewCell elements:

  • KeyUp—occurs when the user releases a keyboard key. The type of the passed event arguments is KeyEventArgs.

  • KeyDown—occurs when the user presses a keyboard key. The type of the passed event arguments is KeyEventArgs.

In the following example, you can see how to subscribe to KeyDown and KeyUp events from XAML.

Subscribe to KeyDown and KeyUp events

XAML
	<telerik:RadGridView x:Name="radGridView" KeyDown="radGridView_KeyDown" KeyUp="radGridView_KeyUp"/>

t is always a good practice to attach your event handlers in the XAML, whenever your application logic allows this.

The implementation of both event handlers is located in the code-behind file (C# or VB.NET) and looks like this:

Implementation of KeyUp and KeyDown events

C#
	private void radGridView_KeyDown(object sender, KeyEventArgs e)
	{
	    MessageBox.Show("The pressed key is: " + e.Key.ToString());
	}
	private void radGridView_KeyUp(object sender, KeyEventArgs e)
	{
	    MessageBox.Show("The released key is: " + e.Key.ToString());
	}

You can attach to the other keyboard events in the same way.

See Also

In this article
PropertiesEventsSee Also
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