Question

Is there a way to detect if a key is currently down in JavaScript?

I know about the “keydown” event, but that’s not what I need. Some time AFTER the key is pressed, I want to be able to detect if it is still pressed down.

P. S. The biggest issue seems to be that after some period of time the key begins to repeat, firing off keydown and keyup events like a fiend. Hopefully there is just a simple isKeyDown(key) function, but if not then this issue will need to be overcome / worked around.

Answer 1

Is there a way to detect if a key is currently down in JavaScript?

Nope. The only possibility is monitoring each keyup and keydown and remembering.

after some period of time the key begins to repeat, firing off keydown and keyup events like a fiend.

It shouldn’t. You’ll definitely get keypress repeating, and in many browsers you’ll also get repeated keydown, but if keyup repeats, it’s a bug.

Unfortunately it is not a completely unheard-of bug: on Linux, Chromium, and Firefox (when it is being run under GTK+, which it is in popular distros such as Ubuntu) both generate repeating keyup-keypress-keydown sequences for held keys, which are impossible to distinguish from someone hammering the key really fast.