keez

Frictionless hotkey handling for browsers

Usage

import { captureKeys } from "keez";

const saveCommand = captureKeys("CmdOrCtrl", "S");
const italicCommand = captureKeys("CmdOrCtrl", "I");

document.addEventListener("keydown", (event) => {
  if (saveCommand(event)) {
    /* Do something, e.g. call `fetch` */
  } else if (italicCommand(event)) {
    /* Do something else, e.g. format selected text */
  }
});

Features

• CmdOrCtrl modifier for interoperability between operating systems
• Supports synthetic events (e.g. for React elements)
• Calls event.preventDefault() when a match is found, suppressing handlers of the underlying browser (or even the system)
• TypeScript-based code completion for common modifier keys
• Low overhead, compared to similar libraries

Browser support

Every browser with the Set built-in is supported out of the box.

Implementation details

There are quite a few attributes to handle keystrokes with:

	Layout-aware	Modifier-independent	Supports all events	Named non-printables
key	✓	✗	✓	✓
code	✗	✓	✓	✓
keyCode / which (legacy)	✓	✓	✓	✗
charCode (legacy)	✓	✓	✗	✗

Despite being a legacy attribute, keyCode is used in comparisons by default. It’s independent from modifiers, unlike the modern key alternative.

However, when it comes to named key attribute values (e.g. Escape or Backspace), the key property is used under the hood.