Question: firefox keypress event Alt+Shift+any other key

[hui11]

Hi,

According to the doc at mozilla, http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/DOM:event.charCode, the charCode takes shift into consideration when pressed. I found that to be true for other cases except when Alt+Shift is pressed. For example, the charCode alt+shift+a does not reflect a capitalized a, 'A', or alt+shift+1 does not reflect '!', instead they should 'a' and '1', respectively. Furthermore, I found that when alt+shift is pressed, the shiftKey boolean does get set to true. Does anyone know why this is the case, and any suggestion on how to fix this is appreciated thanks!

Here's an example:

function foo(e)
{
   if (e.altKey)
      alert("alt key pressed");
 
   if (e.shiftKey)
       alert("shift key pressed");
 
   alert(String.fromCharCode(e.charCode);
}
 
window.addEventListener('keypress', foo, true);

Try pressing key combos of alt+shift+"any other displayable key"

Thanks!!

[mrhoo]

I would write the function like this-
It returns the correct booleans and capitalized letters,
when alt & shift are pressed and another key is pressed and released.

function foo(e){
var str= 'alt key: '+e.altKey+', shift key: '+e.shiftKey+'\n';
var s= e.charCode || e.keyCode;
if(s>= 16 && s<= 18) return;
str+= 'code: '+s+' = '+String.fromCharCode(s);
alert(str);
}

window.addEventListener('keyup', foo, false);

[hui11]

I would write the function like this-
It returns the correct booleans and capitalized letters,
when alt & shift are pressed and another key is pressed and released.

function foo(e){
var str= 'alt key: '+e.altKey+', shift key: '+e.shiftKey+'\n';
var s= e.charCode || e.keyCode;
if(s>= 16 && s<= 18) return;
str+= 'code: '+s+' = '+String.fromCharCode(s);
alert(str);
}

window.addEventListener('keyup', foo, false);

hi mrhoo, thanks for replying... I tried running your code and I am still not getting the upper character with shift pressed. The weird thing is if I hold alt+shift with control and any other key, the upper character is actually alerted. For your information, I am building a plugin for Firefox, and I am running firefox on Ubuntu.

Thanks!!

[mrhoo]

sorry I couldn't help-
keypress events are the hardest to make work across different browsers,
even the more standard compliant, like firefox, because there really is no standard recommendation for them.

I don't have firefox on linux, but firefox in windows passes the correct letter case with alt or cntrl key pressed with shift.

[acoder]

On Firefox, keyCode is available onkeyup/down and charCode onkeypress. The 'which' property gives you either of the two. See this useful page for more information.