Question

I am using the keyup and keydown events to get user’s keystrokes. These events do just that: fire when the key is up or down.

However, I’d like to get a repeat event when a key stays pressed.

What event should I be using?

Answer 1

Use the keypress event for this purpose. Example:

$('element').keypress(function(ev){
    var character = String.fromCharCode(ev.which); //Code to character conversion
})

The key events are fired in the following order:

• keydown – Once
• keypress – Multiple times
• keyup – Once (preventDefault() cannot prevent default behaviour any more, at this point)