How to read input in a html page with javascript without focus in one field

Question

I want to ask how can someone read keystrokes while in a html page without having focus in a particular field. Is there some event that i can hook a method that reads input?

Thanks in advance.

PS. We use JQuery if that helps.

Answer 1

Use document.onkeypress (or the siblings onkeydown and onkeyup ):

document.onkeypress = function (event) { ... };

jQuery offers for these events, eg,

$(document).keypress (function (event) { ... });

This will catch all key press events on your site. Inside the function you can get the numeric code of the pressed key with event.keyCode . Be aware, that there are some browser incompatibilities, especially with the keypress event. See developer.mozilla.com for how FF handles it.

Cheers,