Question

I’m curious how i, with the following jQuery plugin code im writing at the bottom of this question, could implement key combos. How it’s working so far is it allows a user to create key commands simply by doing a normal jQuery like syntax and provide an event for the key command, like so:

$(window).jkey('a',function(){
   alert('you pressed the a key!');
});

or

$(window).jkey('b c d',function(){
   alert('you pressed either the b, c, or d key!');
});

and lastly what i want is the ability to do, but can’t figure out:

$(window).jkey('alt+n',function(){
   alert('you pressed alt+n!');
});

I know how to do this outside of the plugin (on keyup set a var false and on keydown set the var true and check if the var is true when you press the other key), but i don’t know how to do this when you dont know what keys are going to be pressed and how many. How do I add this support? I want to be able to allow them to do things like alt+shift+a or a+s+d+f if they wanted. I just can’t get my head around how to implement this. Any ideas?

I’m going to release this as an open source plugin and i’d love to give whoever gives me the right, working, answer some credit on the blog post and in the code it’s self. Thanks in advance!

(function($) {
  $.fn.jkey = function(keyCombo,callback) {
    if(keyCombo.indexOf(' ') > -1){ //If multiple keys are selected
        var keySplit = keyCombo.split(' ');
    }
    else{ //Else just store this single key
        var keySplit = [keyCombo];
    }
    for(x in keySplit){ //For each key in the array...

        if(keySplit[x].indexOf('+') > -1){
            //Key selection by user is a key combo... what now?
        }
        else{
            //Otherwise, it's just a normal, single key command
        }

        switch(keySplit[x]){
            case 'a':
                keySplit[x] = 65;
                break;
            case 'b':
                keySplit[x] = 66;
                break;
            case 'c':
                keySplit[x] = 67;
                break;
            //And so on for all the rest of the keys
        }
    }
    return this.each(function() {
        $this = $(this);
        $this.keydown(function(e){
            if($.inArray(e.keyCode, keySplit) > -1){ //If the key the user pressed is matched with any key the developer set a key code with...
                if(typeof callback == 'function'){ //and they provided a callback function
                    callback(); //trigger call back and...
                    e.preventDefault(); //cancel the normal
                }
            }
        });
    });
  }
})(jQuery);

Answer 1

Here’s what I came up with. Essentially what I did was created a JSON object that stores all the key codes. I then replace all the provided keys with the codes. If the keys are using the ‘+’ to make a key combo, I then create an array of the codes out of it.

We then create another array that stores all the keys that are being pressed (keyDown add the item, keyUp removes it). On keyDown, we check if it’s a single key command or combo. If it’s a combo, we check it against all the currently active key presses. If they all match, we execute the callback.

This will work with any number of key combos. Only time I saw that it wasn’t working is when you use the ‘alert()’ to display a message on the key combo because it will no longer remove the items from the active key press array.

(function($) { 
  $.fn.jkey = function(keyCombo,callback) {

    // Save the key codes to JSON object
    var keyCodes = { 
      'a'   : 65,
      'b'   : 66,
      'c'   : 67,
      'alt' : 18
    };

    var x = '';
    var y = '';

    if(keyCombo.indexOf(' ') > -1){ //If multiple keys are selected
        var keySplit = keyCombo.split(' ');
    }
    else{ //Else just store this single key
        var keySplit = [keyCombo];
    }

    for(x in keySplit){ //For each key in the array...

      if(keySplit[x].indexOf('+') > -1){
        //Key selection by user is a key combo
        // Create a combo array and split the key combo
        var combo = Array();
        var comboSplit = keySplit[x].split('+');

        // Save the key codes for each element in the key combo
        for(y in comboSplit){
          combo[y] = keyCodes[ comboSplit[y] ];
        }

        keySplit[x] = combo;

      } else {
        //Otherwise, it's just a normal, single key command
        keySplit[x] = keyCodes[ keySplit[x] ];
      }

    }

    return this.each(function() {
        $this = $(this);

        // Create active keys array
        // This array will store all the keys that are currently being pressed
        var activeKeys = Array();

        $this.keydown(function(e){

          // Save the current key press
          activeKeys[ e.keyCode ] = e.keyCode;

          if($.inArray(e.keyCode, keySplit) > -1){ // If the key the user pressed is matched with any key the developer set a key code with...

            if(typeof callback == 'function'){ //and they provided a callback function
              callback(); //trigger call back and...
              e.preventDefault(); //cancel the normal
            }

          } else { // Else, the key did  not match which means it's either a key combo or just dosn't exist

            // Check if the individual items in the key combo match what was pressed
            for(x in keySplit){
              if($.inArray(e.keyCode, keySplit[x]) > -1){

                // Initiate the active variable
                var active = 'unchecked';

                // All the individual keys in the combo with the keys that are currently being pressed
                for(y in keySplit[x]) {
                  if(active != false) {
                    if($.inArray(keySplit[x][y], activeKeys) > -1){
                      active = true;
                    } else {
                      active = false;
                    }
                  }
                }

                // If all the keys in the combo are being pressed, active will equal true
                if(active === true){
                  if(typeof callback == 'function'){ //and they provided a callback function
                    callback(); //trigger call back and...
                    e.preventDefault(); //cancel the normal
                  }
                }
              }
            }

          } // end of if in array

        }).keyup(function(e) {
          // Remove the current key press
          activeKeys[ e.keyCode ] = '';
        });

    });

  }
})(jQuery);