Question

It seems that it is impossible to capture the keyboard event normally used for copy when running a Flex application in the browser or as an AIR app, presumably because the browser or OS is intercepting it first.

Is there a way to tell the browser or OS to let the event through?

For example, on an AdvancedDataGrid I have set the keyUp event to handleCaseListKeyUp(event), which calls the following function:

        private function handleCaseListKeyUp(event:KeyboardEvent):void         {             var char:String = String.fromCharCode(event.charCode).toUpperCase();              if (event.ctrlKey && char == 'C')             {                 trace('Ctrl-C');                 copyCasesToClipboard();                 return;             }              if (!event.ctrlKey && char == 'C')             {                 trace('C');                 copyCasesToClipboard();                 return;             }              // Didn't match event to capture, just drop out.             trace('charCode: ' + event.charCode);             trace('char: ' + char);             trace('keyCode: ' + event.keyCode);             trace('ctrlKey: ' + event.ctrlKey);             trace('altKey: ' + event.altKey);             trace('shiftKey: ' + event.shiftKey);         } 

When run, I can never get the release of the ‘C’ key while also pressing the command key (which shows up as KeyboardEvent.ctrlKey). I get the following trace results:

charCode: 0 char:  keyCode: 17 ctrlKey: false altKey: false shiftKey: false 

As you can see, the only event I can capture is the release of the command key, the release of the ‘C’ key while holding the command key isn’t even sent.

Has anyone successfully implemented standard copy and paste keyboard handling?

Am I destined to just use the ‘C’ key on it’s own (as shown in the code example) or make a copy button available?

Or do I need to create the listener manually at a higher level and pass the event down into my modular application’s guts?

Answer 1

I did a test where I listened for key up events on the stage and noticed that (on my Mac) I could capture control-c, control-v, etc. just fine, but anything involving command (the  key) wasn’t captured until I released the command key, and then ctrlKey was false (even though the docs says that ctrlKey should be true for the command key on the Mac), and the charCode was 0. Pretty useless, in short.