Question

Is there an existing javascript library for relaying key press events in the browser (or certain divs) into flash? I am hoping there might be a library kind of like this one for mousewheel events ?

Something like this handles javascript keyboard shortcuts great. I suppose I could just listen for those events and pass the ones I want into flash?

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EDIT: These are great examples, however, if flash has focus, then javascript keystrokes are lost. How can you ensure that all key events go through javascript?

Answer 1

Here’s another example using jQuery. You can see some sort of demo here. It traces the keypresses from the browser to a textbox.

Your JavaScript would be

var altPressed = false;     var ctrlPressed = false;      function getFlashMovie(movieName)      {         var isIE = navigator.appName.indexOf('Microsoft') != -1;         return (isIE) ? window[movieName] : document[movieName];     }      function sendCode(code) {         movie = getFlashMovie('keyboard-listener');         movie.keyEvent(code);     }      function activeKey(e) {         e.preventDefault();         if (e.which == 18) altPressed = true;         if (e.which == 17) ctrlPressed = true;         if ((e.which != 18)&&(e.which != 17)) sendCode((altPressed?'alt+':'')+(ctrlPressed?'ctrl+':'')+String.fromCharCode(e.which));     }      function inactiveKey(e) {         if (e.which == 18) altPressed = false;         if (e.which == 17) ctrlPressed = false;     }      $(document).ready(function() {         $(document).keydown(activeKey);         $(document).keyup(inactiveKey);     }); 

Inside the Flash movie, you would have the following code:

ExternalInterface.addCallback('keyEvent',keyEvent);  function keyEvent(code:String):void {     // do something with the 'code' parameter, that looks like 'alt+ctrl+D', may use .split('+'), etc } 

You’ll need to import jQuery in your html file and that’s about it. jQuery is cross-browser, so no problems should arise. Tested on Safari, Firefox and Opera (OSX).