Discussion on: JavaScript detecting which key is pressed

[Alex Lohr]

Here's an interesting thing. A keypress will yield a slightly different event than a keyup. For example, pressing the 'ö' on a german keyboard will get you

// keypress (removed some noise)
{
altKey: false,
charCode: 246,
code: "Semicolon", // this is ignoring other keyboard layouts!
ctrlKey: false,
key: "ö", // correct
keyCode: 246, // the correct char code
location: 0,
metaKey: false,
shiftKey: false,
type: "keypress",
which: 246, // the correct char code
}
// keyup (removed some noise)
{
altKey: false,
charCode: 0,
code: "Semicolon", // this is ignoring other keyboard layouts!
ctrlKey: false,
key: "ö", // correct
keyCode: 192, // not the char code
location: 0,
metaKey: false,
shiftKey: false,
type: "keyup",
which: 192, // not the char code
}

So if you want the code of the character and not of the key, you'll want the keypress, not the keyup event.

[Yuri Filatov]

Thank you for such wonderful information!

[Chris Bongers]

Ah yes correct, I'll get to the keyup in a next one actually for a specific reason, but valid point thanks Alex!

[Priit]

According to MDN, the keypress event is deprecated and should not be used in new websites.

[Alex Lohr]

Not yet deprecated, though it might be at some point in the future: w3c.github.io/uievents/#event-type...