InputBindings work only when focused

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InputBindings won’t be executed for a control that isn’t focused because of the way they work – a handler for the input binding is searched in the visual tree from the focused element to the visual tree’s root (the window). When a control is not focused, he won’t be a part of that search path.

As @Wayne has mentioned, the best way to go would be simply move the input bindings to the parent window. Sometimes however this isn’t possible (for example when the UserControl isn’t defined in the window’s xaml file).

My suggestion would be to use an attached behavior to move these input bindings from the UserControl to the window. Doing so with an attached behavior also has the benefit of being able to work on any FrameworkElement and not just your UserControl. So basically you’ll have something like this:

public class InputBindingBehavior
{
    public static bool GetPropagateInputBindingsToWindow(FrameworkElement obj)
    {
        return (bool)obj.GetValue(PropagateInputBindingsToWindowProperty);
    }

    public static void SetPropagateInputBindingsToWindow(FrameworkElement obj, bool value)
    {
        obj.SetValue(PropagateInputBindingsToWindowProperty, value);
    }

    public static readonly DependencyProperty PropagateInputBindingsToWindowProperty =
        DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached("PropagateInputBindingsToWindow", typeof(bool), typeof(InputBindingBehavior),
        new PropertyMetadata(false, OnPropagateInputBindingsToWindowChanged));

    private static void OnPropagateInputBindingsToWindowChanged(DependencyObject d, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
    {
        ((FrameworkElement)d).Loaded += frameworkElement_Loaded;
    }

    private static void frameworkElement_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
    {
        var frameworkElement = (FrameworkElement)sender;
        frameworkElement.Loaded -= frameworkElement_Loaded;

        var window = Window.GetWindow(frameworkElement);
        if (window == null)
        {
            return;
        }

        // Move input bindings from the FrameworkElement to the window.
        for (int i = frameworkElement.InputBindings.Count - 1; i >= 0; i--)
        {
            var inputBinding = (InputBinding)frameworkElement.InputBindings[i];
            window.InputBindings.Add(inputBinding);
            frameworkElement.InputBindings.Remove(inputBinding);
        }
    }
}

Usage:

<c:FunctionButton Content="Click Me" local:InputBindingBehavior.PropagateInputBindingsToWindow="True">
    <c:FunctionButton.InputBindings>
        <KeyBinding Key="F1" Modifiers="Shift" Command="{Binding FirstCommand}" />
        <KeyBinding Key="F2" Modifiers="Shift" Command="{Binding SecondCommand}" />
    </c:FunctionButton.InputBindings>
</c:FunctionButton>

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