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Asked: 2026-05-12T18:55:04+00:00

I am writing an application in JavaScript (with JQuery). The application has a lot

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I am writing an application in JavaScript (with JQuery). The application has a lot of functionality that the user needs to access quickly and possibly at the same time (you could think of it as a game, even though it’s not a game) so I’ve set it up to use the keyboard. I’ve got a prototype of the system working (in Chrome, at least), but there is a problem in that when I press, for example, Ctrl–T, it opens a new tab. I would like to use this as part of my application to, for example, toggle some setting. In general, I would like to disable the Ctrl-key functionality of the browser. This goes for Alt and Shift, too. In a different way, I would also like to disable the browser’s usage of the Tab key. Basically, I want my application to have complete control over the keyboard while it’s being used (if they want to navigate away, they will still be able to do so with the mouse). I will add the caveat that I don’t care about some of the less-common keys (F1–F12, Windows/Mac-Command, Menu, anything right of the Enter key) because my application mainly targets laptops and many don’t have those keys, so they won’t be used.

My question is, how can I disable this browser functionality with JavaScript/JQuery/DOM?

I understand that taking over browser functionality in this way this sounds very authoritarian, but it’s actually quite necessary. From the prototype and some target-audience test users (my family) everyone has agreed that this was a good idea.

I’ve also considered moving my application out of the browser and writing it in some application language (probably Java), but I want to find out if this kind of functionality is possible in JavaScript before making that kind of switch. This is prototyping time, though, so every idea is still up for consideration!

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Basically, you return false at the right time. See this: How to create Ctrl+Key shortcuts in Javascript.

    I should add and say sometimes this doesn’t work – it’s up to the browser to allow this.
    Also, it is sometimes possible to change e.which to another key, but again, this wouldn’t always work.

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