# Keyboard exclusivity

Some keystrokes or key combinations normally bypass applications and are handled by the operating system. Some examples are Alt+Tab (Command+Tab on Mac OS X) to switch applications and the keys mapped to Expose on Mac OS X.

You can disable these hot keys and have them behave as ordinary keystrokes for your application. This can be useful if you are developing a kiosk application which should not be closed, or a game in which it is possible for a user to accidentally press one of these keys.

To enable this mode, call set_exclusive_keyboard for the window on which it should apply. On Mac OS X the dock and menu bar will slide out of view while exclusive keyboard is activated.

The following restrictions apply on Windows:

- Most keys are not disabled: a user can still switch away from your application using Ctrl+Escape, Alt+Escape, the Windows key or Ctrl+Alt+Delete. Only the Alt+Tab combination is disabled.

The following restrictions apply on Mac OS X:

- The power key is not disabled.

Use of this function is not recommended for general release applications or games as it violates user-interface conventions.