Detecting arrow key presses in JavaScript

javascript keypress keyboard-events
mihsathe picture mihsathe · Apr 8, 2011 · Viewed 522.8k times · Source

How do I detect when one of the arrow keys are pressed? I used this to find out:

function checkKey(e) {
    var event = window.event ? window.event : e;
    console.log(event.keyCode)
}

Though it worked for every other key, it didn't for arrow keys (maybe because the browser is supposed to scroll on these keys by default).

Answer

Mark Kahn picture Mark Kahn · Apr 8, 2011

Arrow keys are only triggered by onkeydown, not onkeypress.

The keycodes are:

  • left = 37
  • up = 38
  • right = 39
  • down = 40

Related questions

Javascript, key press value is always one character behind the latest?

If I type 'St', by the time I press the t, if I output the input of textfield.value in the onkeypress/onkeydown functions, I only get 'S'. Why is this? How do I get rid of this lag?

Read More
Prevent form submission on Enter key press

I have a form with two text boxes, one select drop down and one radio button. When the enter key is pressed, I want to call my JavaScript function, but when I press it, the form is submitted. How do …

Read More
jQuery Event Keypress: Which key was pressed?

With jQuery, how do I find out which key was pressed when I bind to the keypress event? $('#searchbox input').bind('keypress', function(e) {}); I want to trigger a submit when ENTER is pressed. [Update] Even though I found …

Read More