Detect shift-character keypress

[Chris Williams]

Hi all,

I am becoming a little stressed with the age-old problem of detecting when a
user types (for example) a quote character ("). On a UK keyboard, I can look
for a 2 + shift mask; on US, single quote + shift mask.

I don't want to have to know every single international keyboard layout just
to know when a shifted character has been entered. If anybody has any ideas
to share, I'd be very grateful!

Thanks in advance,

Chris.

[VK]

I'm missing the root of your problem.

" (double quote) has ASCII-ISO code 34 (hex 22), and this fact has nothing
to do with the current keyboard layout. The same for the rest of ASCII table
(low 127 chars).

What is your actual aim?

[Chris Williams]

Hi VK, thanks for the fast response.

I have a function that is called onMouseDown and I want to know when the
user types a quote, even if not currently in a text editing element.

I can detect that a key has been pressed and can, of course, get the keyCode
and whether shift was pressed. I don't seem to be able to get the ASCII
code, which -- as you point out -- is exactly what I want.

Here's the code:

document.onkeydown = keyIsDown;
function keyIsDown(e){
if(!e)
e = window.event;

window.status = "key down: " + String.fromCharCode(e.keycode) + " ( " +
e.keyCode + ")";
}

If I press '2' , I get 2 (50); if I press '"', I also get 2 (50).

Please tell me I'm missing something simple!

Cheers...

Chris.

"VK" <sc**********@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:41***********************@news.freenet.de...

I'm missing the root of your problem.

" (double quote) has ASCII-ISO code 34 (hex 22), and this fact has nothing
to do with the current keyboard layout. The same for the rest of ASCII table (low 127 chars).

What is your actual aim?

[Chris Williams]

Sorry, onMouseDown should be onkeydown!

[Philip Ronan]

On 13/10/04 5:41 pm, Chris Williams wrote:

If I press '2' , I get 2 (50); if I press '"', I also get 2 (50).

The onkeydown event will check for *any* key being pressed. That includes
the shift key. So when you press your "2" key, a totally separate event is
fired.

Use the onkeypress event instead

document.onkeypress = checkKey;
function checkKey(e) {
if (!e) e = window.event;
window.status = "key down: " + String.fromCharCode(e.keyCode) + " ( " +
e.keyCode + ")";
}

Phil
--
Philip Ronan
ph***********@virgin.net
(Please remove the "z"s if replying by email)

[Chris Williams]

Thanks very much Philip -- I think my confusion arose after creating
functions to capture mouse events, using onmousedown. I think I more-or-less
automatically created what I thought would be the keyboard equivalent, which
did not work!

Thanks for taking the time to reply, I've got this sorted now.

Cheers,

Chris.

"Philip Ronan" <ph***********@virgin.net> wrote in message
news:BD93454E.23A30%ph***********@virgin.net...

On 13/10/04 5:41 pm, Chris Williams wrote:

If I press '2' , I get 2 (50); if I press '"', I also get 2 (50).

The onkeydown event will check for *any* key being pressed. That includes
the shift key. So when you press your "2" key, a totally separate event is
fired.

Use the onkeypress event instead

document.onkeypress = checkKey;
function checkKey(e) {
if (!e) e = window.event;
window.status = "key down: " + String.fromCharCode(e.keyCode) + " ( " +
e.keyCode + ")";
}

Phil
--
Philip Ronan
ph***********@virgin.net
(Please remove the "z"s if replying by email)