how can i track arrow keys in Chrome and IE?

Question

Im using foloowing code to track key events

oEvent=window.event || oEvent;
    iKeyCode=oEvent.keyCode || oEvent.which;alert(iKeyCode);

its giving me alerts in firefox but not in IE and chrome. Its giving me all the other keyborad characters but not esc key and arrow keys.

How can i detect esc key and arrow keys in chrome and IE using javascript??

Answer 1

You don't really need JQuery, though it does make your code shorter.

You will have to use the keyDown event, keyPress will not work in old versions of IE for the arrow keys.

There is a full tutorial here that you can use, see the example with arrow keys close to the bottom of the page: http://www.cryer.co.uk/resources/javascript/script20_respond_to_keypress.htm

Here's some code I used, a bit simplified since I had to handle repeated keypresses with buffering:

document.onkeydown = function(event) {
     if (!event)
          event = window.event;
     var code = event.keyCode;
     if (event.charCode && code == 0)
          code = event.charCode;
     switch(code) {
          case 37:
              // Key left.
              break;
          case 38:
              // Key up.
              break;
          case 39:
              // Key right.
              break;
          case 40:
              // Key down.
              break;
     }
     event.preventDefault();
};