If you’re wondering why you should make the move to WPF, I’d like to share a little sample that demonstrates just how powerful WPF databinding really is, and how you can use it to bind to things that aren’t as obvious. In this sample, we’re going to create a status bar that shows whether certain keys are enabled or not. These are the Insert, Scroll Lock, Num Lock and Caps Lock keys that have their status displayed in applications like Word.
In order to perform this “magic”, we need to use a bit of the Windows API to get the state of the keys we are interested in. We use the GetKeyState API call in user32.dll, with an enumeration mapping the values we’re interested in.
The trick to actually reacting to the changes lies in previewing the keyup event, which allows you to intercept events from the keyboard (without changing them), and update the status of the keys accordingly. As we expose the keyboard items we are interested in as properties, using Change notification
Now that we have the keymanager in place, physically performing the binding is childs play.
There – I hope I’ve whetted your appetite, and got you interested in exploring data binding in WPF.
Confessions of a coder 
You could have done this without the Windows API calls, since the framework is offering its own methods:
‘ NumLock handling:
If System.Windows.Input.Keyboard.IsKeyToggled(Key.NumLock) Then
IsNumPressed = “NUM”
Else
IsNumPressed = “”
End If