Can jQuery .keypress() detect more than one key at the same time?

Question

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?

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

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');
    }
});

Jsfiddle demo.

Other propertys are:

• event.ctrlKey
• event.altKey
• event.metaKey