Keyboard

Experimental: This is an experimental technology
Check the Browser compatibility table carefully before using this in production.

Secure context: This feature is available only in secure contexts (HTTPS), in some or all supporting browsers.

The Keyboard interface of the Keyboard API provides functions that retrieve keyboard layout maps and toggle capturing of key presses from the physical keyboard.

A list of valid code values is found in the UI Events KeyboardEvent code Values spec.

Instance properties

None.

Instance methods

Keyboard.getLayoutMap() Experimental: Returns a Promise that resolves with an instance of KeyboardLayoutMap which is a map-like object with functions for retrieving the strings associated with specific physical keys.
Keyboard.lock() Experimental: Returns a Promise after enabling the capture of keypresses for any or all of the keys on the physical keyboard.
Keyboard.unlock() Experimental: Unlocks all keys captured by the lock() method and returns synchronously.

Example

The following example demonstrates how to get the location- or layout-specific string associated with the key that corresponds to the 'W' key on an English QWERTY keyboard.

if (navigator.keyboard) {
  const keyboard = navigator.keyboard;
  keyboard.getLayoutMap().then((keyboardLayoutMap) => {
    const upKey = keyboardLayoutMap.get("KeyW");
    window.alert(`Press ${upKey} to move up.`);
  });
} else {
  // Do something else.
}

Specifications

Specification
Keyboard Map # keyboard-interface
Keyboard Lock # keyboard-interface

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser