Is there a way for jQuery to detect that more than one key was pressed at the same time?
Is there any alternative that allows for pressing two keys at the same time to be detected?
In order to detect multiple keys being held down, use the keydown and keyup events.
var keys = {};
$(document).keydown(function (e) {
keys[e.which] = true;
});
$(document).keyup(function (e) {
delete keys[e.which];
});
I've put together a demo here: http://jsfiddle.net/gFcuU/. It's kind of fun, though I noticed my keyboard is only able to detect at most 6 keys.
It depends. For "normal" keys, that means Non- Shift, Ctrl, ALT, (CMD), the answer is no, the event handler will catch/fire in a queue, one after another.
For the modifier keys I mentioned above, there is a property on the event object.
Example:
$(document).bind('keypress', function(event) {
if( event.which === 65 && event.shiftKey ) {
alert('you pressed SHIFT+A');
}
});
Other propertys are:
event.ctrlKeyevent.altKeyevent.metaKeyIf you just want to fire a handler when several keys are pressed in series, try something like:
jQuery.multipress = function (keys, handler) {
'use strict';
if (keys.length === 0) {
return;
}
var down = {};
jQuery(document).keydown(function (event) {
down[event.keyCode] = true;
}).keyup(function (event) {
// Copy keys array, build array of pressed keys
var remaining = keys.slice(0),
pressed = Object.keys(down).map(function (num) { return parseInt(num, 10); }),
indexOfKey;
// Remove pressedKeys from remainingKeys
jQuery.each(pressed, function (i, key) {
if (down[key] === true) {
down[key] = false;
indexOfKey = remaining.indexOf(key);
if (indexOfKey > -1) {
remaining.splice(indexOfKey, 1);
}
}
});
// If we hit all the keys, fire off handler
if (remaining.length === 0) {
handler(event);
}
});
};
For instance, to fire on s-t,
jQuery.multipress([83, 84], function () { alert('You pressed s-t'); })