useKey

About

keypress, keyup and keydown event handlers as hooks for react.

Installation

npm install --save rooks

Importing the hook

import { useKey } from "rooks";

Usage

Basic example with keydown

function Demo() {
  const inputRef = useRef();
  function windowEnter(e) {
    console.log("[Demo 1] Enter key was pressed on window");
  }
  function vowelsEntered(e) {
    console.log("[Demo 1] You typed a vowel");
  }
  function capitalVowelsEntered(e) {
    console.log("[Demo 1] You typed a capital vowel");
  }
  // window is the target
  useKey(["Enter"], windowEnter);
  useKey(["a", "e", "i", "o", "u"], vowelsEntered, {
    target: inputRef,
  });
  useKey(["A", "E", "I", "O", "U"], capitalVowelsEntered, {
    target: inputRef,
  });
  return (
    <>
      <p>Press enter anywhere to trigger a console.log statement</p>
      <p>Press a,e,i,o,u in the input to trigger a console.log statement</p>
      <p>Press A,E,I,O,U in the input to trigger a different log statement</p>
      <input ref={inputRef} />
    </>
  );
}

render(<Demo />);

Multiple kinds of events

function Demo() {
  const inputRef = useRef();
  function onKeyInteraction(e) {
    console.log("[Demo 2]Enter key", e.type);
  }

  useKey(["Enter"], onKeyInteraction, {
    target: inputRef,
    eventTypes: ["keypress", "keydown", "keyup"],
  });
  return (
    <>
      <p>Try "Enter" Keypress keydown and keyup </p>
      <p>
        It will log 3 events on this input. Since you can listen to multiple
        types of events on a keyboard key.
      </p>
      <input ref={inputRef} />
    </>
  );
}
render(<Demo />);

Conditionally setting handlers

function Demo() {
  const inputRef = useRef();
  const [shouldListen, setShouldListen] = useState(false);
  function toggleShouldListen() {
    setShouldListen(!shouldListen);
  }
  function onKeyInteraction(e) {
    console.log("[Demo 3] Enter key", e.type);
  }

  useKey(["Enter"], onKeyInteraction, {
    target: inputRef,
    eventTypes: ["keypress", "keydown", "keyup"],
    when: shouldListen,
  });
  return (
    <>
      <p>
        Enter key events will only be logged when the listening state is true.
        Click on the button to toggle between listening and not listening
        states.{" "}
      </p>
      <p>
        Handy for adding and removing event handlers only when certain
        conditions are met.
      </p>
      <input ref={inputRef} />
      <br />
      <button onClick={toggleShouldListen}>
        <b>{shouldListen ? "Listening" : "Not listening"}</b> - Toggle{" "}
      </button>
    </>
  );
}
render(<Demo />);

Arguments

Argument value	Type	Description	Defualt
keyList	Array	A list of keys to listen	undefined
callback	Function	Callback function to be called when event is triggered	undefined
options	Object	See table below	undefined

Options value	Type	Description	Defualt
when	Boolean	Condition which if true, will enable the event listeners	true
eventTypes	Array of number or string	Keyboardevent types to listen for. Valid options are keyDown, keyPress and keyUp	['keydown']
target	HTMLElement ref	target ref on which the events should be listened.	window

Returns

No return value

---

Codesandbox Examples

Fun Usekey Usage

Join Bhargav's discord server

You can click on the floating discord icon at the bottom right of the screen and talk to us in our server.