How to read input in a html page with javascript without focus in one field

Question

I want to ask how can someone read keystrokes while in a html page without having focus in a particular field. Is there some event that i can hook a method that reads input?

Thanks in advance.

PS. We use JQuery if that helps.

Answer 1

Use document.onkeypress (or the siblings onkeydown and onkeyup):

document.onkeypress = function (event) { ... };

jQuery offers for these events, e.g.,

$(document).keypress (function (event) { ... });

This will catch all key press events on your site. Inside the function you can get the numeric code of the pressed key with event.keyCode. Be aware, that there are some browser incompatibilities, especially with the keypress event. See developer.mozilla.com for how FF handles it.

Cheers,