[thelist] Detecting certain keys input via JS

Sarah Sweeney mr.sanders at designshift.com
Fri Jul 9 10:24:15 CDT 2004


Jason Lustig wrote:
> So I'm working on some more javascript UI stuff, and have been thinking 
> a lot about password boxes.
> 
> I know that on Macs, if you hit backspace in a password box, it deletes 
> everything in the box - presumably if you made a typo you should just 
> start over.
> 
> I really like this functionality and want to give my password boxes it. 
> I suppose I just need to set it up so that it's like:
> 
> <input type="password" name="foo" onchange="checkBackspace(this);"/>
> 
> ... and just declare the function checkBackspace() to detect if a 
> backspace was put in, and if so, clear this.value.
> 
> Any ideas on how to find out what the character input was?

This should allow you to "catch" the backspace keypress:

function catchKeypress(e)
{
   if (e.keyCode == 8)
   {
     //do whatever...
   }
}
document.onkeydown = catchKeypress;

-- 
Sarah Sweeney
Web Developer & Programmer
Portfolio :: http://sarah.designshift.com
Blog, etc :: http://hardedge.ca


More information about the thelist mailing list