A tiny (~650 B) & modern library for keybindings. See Demo
npm install --save tinykeys
Or for a CDN version, you can use it on unpkg.com
import { tinykeys } from "tinykeys" // Or `window.tinykeys` using the CDN version
tinykeys(window, {
"Shift+D": () => {
alert("The 'Shift' and 'd' keys were pressed at the same time")
},
"y e e t": () => {
alert("The keys 'y', 'e', 'e', and 't' were pressed in order")
},
"$mod+([0-9])": event => {
event.preventDefault()
alert(`Either 'Control+${event.key}' or 'Meta+${event.key}' were pressed`)
},
})
Alternatively, if you want to only create the keybinding handler, and register it as an event listener yourself:
import { createKeybindingsHandler } from "tinykeys"
let handler = createKeybindingsHandler({
"Shift+D": () => {
alert("The 'Shift' and 'd' keys were pressed at the same time")
},
"y e e t": () => {
alert("The keys 'y', 'e', 'e', and 't' were pressed in order")
},
"$mod+KeyD": event => {
event.preventDefault()
alert("Either 'Control+d' or 'Meta+d' were pressed")
},
})
window.addEventListener("keydown", handler)
If you're using tinykeys within a component, you should also make use of the
returned unsubscribe()
function.
import { useEffect } from "react"
import { tinykeys } from "tinykeys"
function useKeyboardShortcuts() {
useEffect(() => {
let unsubscribe = tinykeys(window, {
// ...
})
return () => {
unsubscribe()
}
})
}
Keybindings will be matched against
KeyboardEvent.key
andKeyboardEvent.code
which may have some names you don't expect.
Windows | macOS | key |
code |
---|---|---|---|
N/A | Command / ⌘ |
Meta |
MetaLeft / MetaRight |
Alt |
Option / ⌥ |
Alt |
AltLeft / AltRight |
Control |
Control / ^ |
Control |
ControlLeft / ControlRight |
Shift |
Shift |
Shift |
ShiftLeft / ShiftRight |
Space |
Space |
N/A | Space |
Enter |
Return |
Enter |
Enter |
Esc |
Esc |
Escape |
Escape |
1 , 2 , etc |
1 , 2 , etc |
1 , 2 , etc |
Digit1 , Digit2 , etc |
a , b , etc |
a , b , etc |
a , b , etc |
KeyA , KeyB , etc |
- |
- |
- |
Minus |
= |
= |
= |
Equal |
+ |
+ |
+ |
Equal * |
Something missing? Check out the key logger on the demo website
* Some keys will have the same code as others because they appear on the same key on the keyboard. Keep in mind how this is affected by international keyboards which may have different layouts.
In some instances, tinykeys will alias keys depending on the platform to simplify cross-platform keybindings on international keyboards.
On Windows, on many non-US standard keyboard layouts, there is a key named
Alt Gr
or AltGraph
in the browser, in some browsers, pressing Control+Alt
will report AltGraph
as being pressed instead.
Similarly on macOS, the Alt
(Option
) key will sometimes be reported as the
AltGraph
key.
Note: The purpose of the Alt Gr
key is to type "Alternate Graphics" so you
will often want to use the event.code
(KeyS
) for letters instead of
event.key
(S
)
tinykeys(window, {
"Control+Alt+KeyS": event => {
// macOS: `Control+Alt+S` or `Control+AltGraph+S`
// Windows: `Control+Alt+S` or `Control+AltGraph+S` or `AltGraph+S`
},
"$mod+Alt+KeyS": event => {
// macOS: `Meta+Alt+S` or `Meta+AltGraph+S`
// Windows: `Control+Alt+S` or `Control+AltGraph+S` or `AltGraph+S`
},
})
Keybindings are made up of a sequence of presses.
A press can be as simple as a single key which matches against
KeyboardEvent.code
and
KeyboardEvent.key
(case-insensitive).
// Matches `event.key`:
"d"
// Matches: `event.code`:
"KeyD"
Presses can optionally be prefixed with modifiers which match against any
valid value to
KeyboardEvent.getModifierState()
.
"Control+d"
"Meta+d"
"Shift+D"
"Alt+KeyD"
"Meta+Shift+D"
There is also a special $mod
modifier that makes it easy to support cross
platform keybindings:
- Mac:
$mod
=Meta
(⌘) - Windows/Linux:
$mod
=Control
"$mod+D" // Meta/Control+D
"$mod+Shift+D" // Meta/Control+Shift+D
Alternatively, you can use parenthesis to use case-sensitive regular expressions to match multiple keys.
"$mod+([0-9])" // $mod+0, $mod+1, $mod+2, etc...
// equivalent regex: /^[0-9]$/
Keybindings can also consist of several key presses in a row:
"g i" // i.e. "Go to Inbox"
"g a" // i.e. "Go to Archive"
"ArrowUp ArrowUp ArrowDown ArrowDown ArrowLeft ArrowRight ArrowLeft ArrowRight B A"
Each press can optionally be prefixed with modifier keys:
"$mod+K $mod+1" // i.e. "Toggle Level 1"
"$mod+K $mod+2" // i.e. "Toggle Level 2"
"$mod+K $mod+3" // i.e. "Toggle Level 3"
Each press in the sequence must be pressed within 1000ms of the last.
You can use the parseKeybinding
method to get a structured representation of a
keyboard shortcut. It can be useful when you want to display it in a fancier way
than a plain string.
import { parseKeybinding } from "tinykeys"
let parsedShortcut = parseKeybinding("$mod+Shift+K $mod+1")
Results into:
[
[["Meta", "Shift"], "K"],
[["Meta"], "1"],
]
You can configure the behavior of tinykeys in a couple ways using a third
options
parameter.
tinykeys(
window,
{
M: toggleMute,
},
{
event: "keyup",
capture: true,
},
)
Valid values: "keydown"
, "keyup"
Key presses will listen to this event (default: "keydown"
).
Note: Do not pass
"keypress"
, it is deprecated in browsers.
Keybinding sequences will wait this long between key presses before cancelling
(default: 1000
).
Note: Setting this value too low (i.e.
300
) will be too fast for many of your users.