Question

Is it possible with jQuery to discover when a user has entered the first character in a search box as @ or # and then prompt an alert no matter what keyboard language or settings they have?

for instance, if I enter @ into the searchbox I want it to prompt a message or perform my action.

​<input type='text' name='search' id='search' />​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

jQuery

$("#search").keydown(function(event) {
    alert(event.which);
});​

Answer 1

Only the keypress event reports a reliable value for event.which: http://jsfiddle.net/QDCvG/

$("#search").keypress(function(event) {
    // @ = 64, # = 35
    if ((this.value.length === 0 || this.selectionStart === 0)
     && (event.which === 64 || event.which === 35)) {
        // keypress fires before the field is populated
    }
});​

String.fromCharCode(event.which) can be used to get the typed character.