Entrepreneur Geek

In a Flex application we are building, we want to listen to Ctrl+N to create a new file. The browser listens to the keystroke and opens a new window. We do not want it to open a new window.

This has been a problematic thing for many. I did a lot of research, trial & error, but I still don’t have a solution. I can catch all key events, using some JavaScript, I can also prevent Ctrl+W and Ctrl+S. But not Ctrl+N. Do you have something?

References:

• Buzzword guys had a lot of problems in keyboard / clipboard handling – http://www.colettas.org/?p=69
• Global keyboard event handling – http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/communitye … postId=304
• Keyboard handling with Flex app – arrow keys should not scroll browser – http://www.nabble.com/Flex-application- … 37485.html
• Moving a sprite with keyboard in Flex – http://codes.widged.com/?q=node/772

Situations / Test Cases:

• Should work: Ctrl + N (New), Ctrl + O (Open), Ctrl + W (Close), Ctrl + Q (Quit)
• Ctrl + C (Copy), Ctrl + V (Paste), Ctrl + X (Cut) – this works with current Flex app. New code must not break it
• Should work on Windows, Mac, Linux
• Should work on Firefox, IE, Safari, Chrome
• What if focus is not in Flex app?
• What if user goes to another window, comes to our app and presses a keyboard shortcut? (this will lose focus)
• Will cut / copy / paste from Browser’s Edit menu work?

JavaScript does it:

• OpenJS – http://www.openjs.com/scripts/events/ke … shortcuts/ – did not work with Command+N
• QooXDoo – http://news.qooxdoo.org/key-event-nightmare-resolved – Full JS library for AJAX, has keyboard handling
• Rajan S – http://santrajan.blogspot.com/2007/03/c … ndler.html – small JS code to capture keys

Flex documentation says:
When handling a key or key combination that the underlying operating system or browser recognizes, the operating system or browser generally processes the event first. For example, in Microsoft Internet Explorer, pressing Control+w closes the browser window. If you trap that combination in your Flex application, Internet Explorer users never know it, because the browser closes before the ActiveX Flash Player has a chance to react to the event.

Notes:

• KeyboardEvent is non cancelable in Flex.
• stopImmediatePropagation(), preventDefault(), stopPropagation() – don’t stop the propagation
• I can detect the keys very well, problem is suppressing the default browser action
• Don’t want to have a full HTML/JavaScript/ExternalInterface handling like Buzzword. Ideally, want to let Flex handle it’s own events, HTML handle browser events and suppress them.

Any ideas?

TIA!