jQuery keypress() event not firing?

Question

I am trying to fire an event on the right and left arrow key presses with jQuery. Using the following code, I can fire events on any of the alphanumeric keys, but the cursor keys (up, down, left, right) fire nothing. I am developing the site primarily for IE users because it is a line of business app. Am I doing something wrong here?

$('document').keypress(function(e){     switch (e.which) {         case 40:             alert('down');             break;         case 38:             alert('up');             break;         case 37:             alert('left');             break;         case 39:             alert('right');             break;         default:             alert('???');               }       }); 

Answer 1

e.which doesn't work in IE try e.keyCode, also you probably want to use keydown() instead of keypress() if you are targeting IE.

See http://unixpapa.com/js/key.html for more information.

Answer 2

With jQuery, I've done it this way:

function checkKey(e){      switch (e.keyCode) {         case 40:             alert('down');             break;         case 38:             alert('up');             break;         case 37:             alert('left');             break;         case 39:             alert('right');             break;         default:             alert('???');               }       }  if ($.browser.mozilla) {     $(document).keypress (checkKey); } else {     $(document).keydown (checkKey); } 

Also, try these plugins, which looks like they do all that work for you:

http://www.openjs.com/scripts/events/keyboard_shortcuts

http://www.webappers.com/2008/07/31/bind-a-hot-key-combination-with-jquery-hotkeys/