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I did buy a cheap controller (windows thinks it's a xbox 360 controller) and I want to get some javascript keypress events from the controller. I did try some keycode testers online like http://keycode.info/ but they didn't gave something back. My question is how do i get the keycodes from the controller in javascript.
550
asked Oct 29 '25 01:10
Gamepad's key press are not handled by events. It's a Object's property stored in:
navigator.getGamepads()[$1].buttons[$2].pressed;
$1 an integer, from 0 to 3, so you can have up to 4 gamepads to control.
$2 an integer, from 0 to 16 in my case ;
so, we must check it by ourself.
navigator.getGamepads() returns a Gamepad List, which looks like this:
{0: null, 1: null, 2: null, 3: null, length: 4}
if a controller connected, it looks like this:
{0: Gamepad, 1: null, 2: null, 3: null, length: 4}
the first element is a Gamepad Object, it looks like this:
{
axes: [0, 0, 0, 0], //these are directions keys;
buttons: [GamepadButton, GamepadButton, ...] //these are buttons;
connected: true,
id: "ACGAM R1",
index: 0,
}
elements in buttons List are GamepadButton Objects, it looks like this:
{pressed: false, value: 0}
if you are using Google Chome, you can check all these information by typing navigator.getGamepads() in dev-tools( Ctrl+Shift+i to open it ) in console .
if you have a gamepad in hand, you can test it use this:
function gameLoop() {
var gamepad = navigator.getGamepads()[0]; //get the first controller.
if (gamepad && gamepad.connected) {
//check if direction buttons (UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT) was pressed
var axes = gamepad.axes;
for (var i in axes) {
if (axes[i] != 0) { print('axes[%s] value is: %s', i, axes[i]); };
};
// to check if other buttons(A,B,C,D,OK,Exit...) was pressed
var buttons = gamepad.buttons;
for (var i in buttons) {
if (buttons[i].pressed == true) { print("buttons[%s] pressed", i); };
};
};
};
var game_loop ;
//when controller connected, page will show: "Gamepad connected"
window.addEventListener("gamepadconnected", function(e) {
print("Gamepad %s connected at %d", e.gamepad.id, e.gamepad.index);
game_loop = setInterval(gameLoop, 50); //check if a button was pressed 20 times every second.
});
//when controller disconnected, page will show: "Gamepad disconnected"
window.addEventListener("gamepaddisconnected", function(e) {
print("Gamepad %s disconnected", e.gamepad.id);
clearInterval(game_loop); // stop checking
});
//end of the code.
//nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
// not about control keys
function print() {
var args = ['== no string == ',];
for (var i in arguments) { args[i] = arguments[i]; };
var s = args[0], vs = args.slice(1);
for (var i in vs) { s = s.replace(/%[a-z]/, vs[i]); };
document.body.innerHTML = s ;
};<html>
<title> test Gamepad buttons</title>
<body>
no Gamepad deteced!
</body>
</html>Have you tried
window.addEventListener("keydown", function(event) {
alert("key: " + event.key + ", code: " + event.code);
}, true);
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