The form recieves all keypress events except alt if my memory serves. As long as you have keypreview=.t. in the form. I've done this before. As for the overhead, it could be reduced by filtering the keys you pass on to the object:

LPARAMETERS nKeyCode, nShiftAltCtrl
if between(nKeyCode, 1, 26) && CTRL-A thru CTRL-Z
	thisform.hotkey.(nKeyCode)
	nodefault
endif

>>Just a thought... how about creating a "HotKey" object that your form class keypress events pass the value of all, or a certain range of keystroke values to?
>
>Nah, that doesn't work because the form doesn't receive all keypress
>events. It only receives ALT keys, otherwise keypress events go to
>the individual controls. Even if it did work there'd be too much
>overhead to check each character. Lots of typing going on in this
>app.