shortcut

A module for managing application-wide keybindings, like closing open pop-ups on ESCAPE, submitting forms using RETURN when focus is within an input field, or doing something totally crazy when pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete.

Requires jQuery2.

Example

Shortcut.enable();
Shortcut.add('ctrl+enter', function(e) {
    // your handler here
});

Features

Wide key support: modifiers, special keys, and NUMPAD

Shortcut supports four modifier keys: ctrl, alt, shift, and meta. A keybinding can be composed of any number of modifier keys with one character.

Special keys like F1 and Print are supported. So are the NUMPAD keys.

The keybinding handler stack

Often when managing complex layouts I run into the issue of requiring certain keybindings to do different things based on what the user is currently doing. For example, if the user is viewing a modal dialog, you would want ESCAPE to close that dialog, while in another context, like inside a text-area widget, you may want that key to do something else.

Shortcut follows a simple approach to reason about this; internally, it uses a Last-In-First-Out stack for handlers bound to each shortcut. The handler that registers last indicates that it is currently occupying the "foreground" of the application and should take precedence over handlers registered prior.

Once the handler is no longer applicable (e.g, the application context it runs in has changed), it un-registers itself and returns control back to the latest handler in the chain.

As the LIFO stack covers the case of context-switching, Shortcut provides an option to deter from this behavior via the propagate option. If you define a handler to allow the propagation of the key event, the entire chain will run until a handler consumes the event, or the chain is finished.

Installation

Shortcut is built as an AMD module using require.js.

AMD

// AMD style:
require([ 'shortcut' ], function(Shortcut) {
});

// or CommonJS style:
define(function(require) {
    var Shortcut = require('shortcut');
});

API

[TBD]

Credits

This code was based on Shortcut by Binny V A.

License

BSD