Keys

Easy keyboard-handling for jQuery. Map key codes to human-readable names and simplify meta-key handling.

Example usage

Define your key mappings in a key handler function. A switch statement lets you use multiple cases to catch named keys or key combinations. Return true on a successful match to prevent further event propagation, or false to allow it to be caught by any other handlers.

keys.addHandler(function(key){
  switch (key) {
    case 'space': /* Do this */ break;
    case 'enter': /* Do that */ break;
    default:      return false; break;
  }
  return true;
});

Map multiple keys or combos to a single action:

keys.addHandler(function(key){
  switch (key) {
    case 'shift-tab':
    case 'left':
    case 'h':
      // Go left
      break;

    case 'up':
    case 'k':
      // Go up
      break;

    case 'tab':
    case 'right':
    case 'l':
      // Go right
      break;

    case 'down':
    case 'j':
      // Go down
      break;

    case 'space':
    case 'enter':
      // Perform an action
      break;

    default:
      return false;
      break;
  }

  return true;
});

### Example names

Some example key and combo names are:

'0'   // Numbers 0 to 9
'a'   // Lower-case letters a to z
'A'   // Upper-case letters A to Z
'tab' // Special keys

// Crazy meta key combos (always in this order)
'cmd-ctrl-alt-shift-enter'

// For an uppercase letter 'shift' is discarded
'ctrl-W'

// Unmatched keys return a key code in square brackets.
// These are usually punctuation keys where the code
// can't be reliably mapped to a name.
'[52]'