react-keyboard-input-hook

A React Hook to easily work with keyboard inputs. This library was originally built for controlling input from a Fire TV remote but it is now flexible for any keyboard input that works with key codes.

Note: As the keypress event is deprecated this library does not support it.

Demo

An example and quick start is at https://github.com/bobinrinder/react-fire-tv-web-app-example

Install

yarn add react-keyboard-input-hook

Example Usage

import React from "react";
import { useKeyUp, useKeyDown, useKeyCombo } from "react-keyboard-input-hook";

function App() {
  // wrapping in useCallback is usually recommended
  const handleKeyUp = ({ keyName }) => {
    console.log("the " + keyName + " was just released!");
  };
  const handleKeyDown = ({ keyName }) => {
    console.log("the " + keyName + " was just pressed down!");
  };
  const handleKeyCombo = () => {
    console.log("a combo of up and down arrow was just pressed!");
  };

  // only destructure what you need, callback is optional
  const { keyCode, keyCodeHistory, keyName, keyNameHistory } = useKeyUp();
  useKeyUp(handleKeyUp);
  useKeyDown(handleKeyDown);
  useKeyCombo([38, 40], handleKeyCombo);

  return (
    <div>
      <h1>Last pressed key code: {keyCode}</h1>
      <h1>Last pressed key name: {keyName}</h1>
      <h6>
        History of pressed keys: {keyCodeHistory.map((item) => item + ", ")}
      </h6>
    </div>
  );
}

export default App;

Reference

useKeyUp

Parameters:

• callback (optional, default null): Callback function that gets executed on every event. Callback argument object:

{
  keyName, // string of pressed key
    keyCode, // integer of pressed keyCode
    e; // event e.g. for e.PreventDefault()
}

• whitelist (optional, default []): Whitelist of keyboard keyCodes (integer array) that are relevant, all other keys will be ignored. Note: Can only be used if blacklist paramater is an empty array.
• blacklist (optional, default []): Blacklist of keyboard keyCodes (integer array) that are irrelevant and therefore will be ignored. Note: Can only be used if whitelist paramater is an empty array.

Return Object:

{
  keyCode, // integer of last pressed keyCode
    keyCodeHistory, // array of integers of recently pressed keyCodes
    keyName, // string of last pressed key
    keyNameHistory; // array of strings of recently pressed keys
}

useKeyDown

Same as useKeyUp.

useKeyCombo

Parameters:

• keyCodes (required): Array of at least 2 integer key codes that make up the key down combination.
• callback (required): Callback function that gets executed once for each combo. Callback argument object:

{
  keyName, // string of last pressed key of combo
    keyCode, // integer of last pressed keyCode of combo
    e; // event e.g. for e.PreventDefault()
}

useFireTvKeyUp

Same as useKeyUp but with whitelist parameter defaulting to Fire TV key codes only (8, 13, 37, 38, 39, 40, 179, 227, 228).

useFireTvKeyDown

Same as useKeyUp but with whitelist parameter defaulting to Fire TV key codes only (8, 13, 37, 38, 39, 40, 179, 227, 228).

License

MIT