When an event handler that reacts to a keyboard event is called, a Plain, so let's kick everything up a few notches and go beyond Handler will get called three times if we happen to press down on a If any of these events are overheard, theĭealWithKeyboard event handler gets called. gets called when any of the keyboard events are overheard Here is an example of us listening to our three keyboard events: document.addEventListener('keydown', dealWithKeyboard, false) ĭocument.addEventListener('keypress', dealWithKeyboard, false) ĭocument.addEventListener('keyup', dealWithKeyboard, false) Value indicating whether we want this event to bubble. Specify the event we want to listen for, specify the event handlingįunction that gets called when the event is overheard, and a true/ false We callĪddEventListener on the element that will be dealing with these events, Similar to any other event we may want to listen and react to. The way we listen to the keydown, keypress, and keyup events is Maybe thisĮvent should be called something else likeĬharacterkeypress, but that is probably a Keypress doesn't fire when any key is pressed.

Your key presses are actually overheard by your application. This difference is subtle but very important when you want to ensure If you press and release a key thatĭoesn't display anything on the screen (such as the spacebar, arrow key,įunction keys, etc.), all you will see are the Release a character key such as the letter y, you will

What this means is somewhat confusing, but it What the name claims, the keypress event is fired only when you press down on a key that displays aĬharacter (letter, number, etc.).

At first glance, it seems like this event is fired when you press down on any key. Both of these events work on any key that you The keyup event is fired when you release a

The keydown event is fired when you press down on a key on your keyboard. Given what these events are called, you probably already have a vague You will need to familiarize yourself with. To work with keyboards in a HTML document, there are three events that To kick your JavaScript skills into outer space, everything you need to become a JS expert is available in both paperback and digital editions.

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