leemeichin / pianist.js

Simple javascript event handling for keybindings

Pianist.js

Easy event handling for keypresses

Trying to trigger events when a key is pressed is a royal pain in the bum to deal with, and even worse when you want cross-browser compatibility. Pianist (coz it's good with keys, eh...) provides a simple interface for binding functionality to keypress events, without having to faff about with all that.

Getting started

Simply include the script, and then do something like this:

var pianist = new Pianist();
pianist.add('?', function(evt, keyPressed) {
  // do something when someone presses '?'
});

Key modifiers

You can add events to certain key combinations, too, using a basic string format:

pianist.add('Ctrl+?', function() {
  // do something when someone presses Control and '?'
});

You can use Ctrl and Alt at the moment.

What about Shift?

The keys you bind to are handled in a case-sensitive manner, which means that Shift is handled automatically if you use uppercase characters, or characters that can only be accessed by holding Shift (like symbols). Ctrl+? is technically the same as Ctrl+Shift+/, while arguably making your bindings more semantic at the expense of verbosity.

It's also a browser limitation.

Removing handlers

Suppose you no longer want to listen for a certain keypress event. You can remove it by simply calling remove.

pianist.remove('?'); // event handler will no longer be fired

Form elements and contenteditable

Events handled by Pianist won't be triggered when the user types in a form element, or any element with contenteditable set, although in future versions this will be reworked to be a bit more smart (ie. allow combos, not single letter bindings).

License

Copyright (C) 2012 Lee James Machin

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.