Question

I have a key listener assigned to the arrow keys to navigate a slideshow. But I want to disable the key listener, temporarily, while a user is typing inside an input field. How can I do that? My current code looks like this:

//Listen to the keys
    function checkKey(e) {
    switch (e.keyCode) {
    case 37:
        changeImage('prev');
        break;
    case 39:
        changeImage('next');;
        break;
        }
    }
    if (jQuery.browser.mozilla) {
            jQuery(document).keypress (checkKey);
    } else {
            jQuery(document).keydown (checkKey);
    }

Answer 1

First, there’s no need for the browser check. For checking arrow keys, just use the keydown event for all keys.

Second, I suggest (as Sean Hogan did) checking the target of the event before doing the slideshow stuff. The following will work on all mainstream desktop browsers:

document.body.onkeydown = function(evt) {
    evt = evt || window.event;
    var target = evt.target || evt.srcElement;
    var targetTagName = (target.nodeType == 1) ? target.nodeName.toUpperCase() : "";
    if ( !/INPUT|SELECT|TEXTAREA/.test(targetTagName) ) { 
        switch (evt.keyCode) {
            case 37:
                changeImage('prev');
                break;
            case 39:
                changeImage('next');
                break;
        }
    }
}