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.

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, $mod+2, etc...
// equivalent regex: /^(?:[0-9])$/iv

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.

It should rarely come up, but the order of your keybindings matters. So if you were to create two keybindings that would match the same event, only the first will fire.

This mainly comes up when you create bindings for both KeyboardEvent#key and KeyboardEvent#code in order to support more keyboard layouts:

tinykeys(window, {
  "$mod+b": () => console.log("make bold"),
  "$mod+KeyB": () => console.log("also bold"),
})

In this case, if the user holds $mod and types b (KeyB) it will only trigger $mod+B and log "make bold"

This can also come up when you have sequences that overlap with other keybindings.

tinykeys(window, {
  "g a": () => console.log("goto archive"),
  "a": () => console.log("archive item"),
})

In this case, if the user types g a it will only log "goto archive"

However, you can also break later keybindings by declaring earlier keybindings that will always win:

tinykeys(window, {
  "g": () => console.log("show goto indicator"),
  "g a": () => console.log("goto archive"),
})

In this case, if the user types g a it will only log "show goto indicator" (after the first g)

In some circumstances, overlapping keybindings can cause "conflicts" where a keybinding has been completely typed, but there is another keybinding declared earlier that might still match.

tinykeys(window, {
  "a b c": () => console.log('abc'),
  "a b": () => console.log('ab'),
})

In this case, if the user types a b it will not trigger either keybinding, but it will print this warning to the console:

warning: tinykeys: Conflict found, "a b" did not fire, waiting for: ["a b c"]

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.

Add a filter for which keyboard events should be ignored.

By default, tinykeys will ignore keyboard events from [contenteditable], input, textarea, and select unless they are the event.currentTarget.