When using jquery .change on an input the event will only be fired when the input loses focus
In my case, I need to make a call to the service (check if value is valid) as soon as the input value is changed. How could I accomplish this?
UPDATED for clarification and example
examples: http://jsfiddle.net/pxfunc/5kpeJ/
Method 1. input event
In modern browsers use the input event. This event will fire when the user is typing into a text field, pasting, undoing, basically anytime the value changed from one value to another.
In jQuery do that like this
$('#someInput').bind('input', function() {
$(this).val() // get the current value of the input field.
});
starting with jQuery 1.7, replace bind with on:
$('#someInput').on('input', function() {
$(this).val() // get the current value of the input field.
});
Method 2. keyup event
For older browsers use the keyup event (this will fire once a key on the keyboard has been released, this event can give a sort of false positive because when "w" is released the input value is changed and the keyup event fires, but also when the "shift" key is released the keyup event fires but no change has been made to the input.). Also this method doesn't fire if the user right-clicks and pastes from the context menu:
$('#someInput').keyup(function() {
$(this).val() // get the current value of the input field.
});
Method 3. Timer (setInterval or setTimeout)
To get around the limitations of keyup you can set a timer to periodically check the value of the input to determine a change in value. You can use setInterval or setTimeout to do this timer check. See the marked answer on this SO question: jQuery textbox change event or see the fiddle for a working example using focus and blur events to start and stop the timer for a specific input field
If you've got HTML5:
oninput (fires only when a change actually happens, but does so immediately)
Otherwise you need to check for all these events which might indicate a change to the input element's value:
onchange
onkeyup (not keydown or keypress as the input's value won't have the new keystroke in it yet)
onpaste (when supported)
and maybe:
onmouseup (I'm not sure about this one)
With HTML5 and without using jQuery, you can using the input event:
var input = document.querySelector('input');
input.addEventListener('input', function()
{
console.log('input changed to: ', input.value);
});
This will fire each time the input's text changes.
Supported in IE9+ and other browsers.
Try it live in a jsFiddle here.
As others already suggested, the solution in your case is to sniff multiple events.
Plugins doing this job often listen for the following events:
$input.on('change keydown keypress keyup mousedown click mouseup', handler);
If you think it may fit, you can add focus, blur and other events too.
I suggest not to exceed in the events to listen, as it loads in the browser memory further procedures to execute according to the user's behaviour.
Attention: note that changing the value of an input element with JavaScript (e.g. through the jQuery .val() method) won't fire any of the events above.
(Reference: https://api.jquery.com/change/).
// .blur is triggered when element loses focus
$('#target').blur(function() {
alert($(this).val());
});
// To trigger manually use:
$('#target').blur();
If you want the event to be fired whenever something is changed within the element then you could use the keyup event.
There are jQuery events like keyup and keypress which you can use with input HTML Elements.
You could additionally use the blur() event.
This covers every change to an input using jQuery 1.7 and above:
$(".inputElement").on("input", null, null, callbackFunction);
I am able to print whatever user types into the textarea onto the console, but the output on the console doesn't print the most current character typed by the user. There is a picture of the result:
http://postimg.org/image/k44nyls9d/
Here is my code:
http://postimg.org/image/ynpl53cmv/
Thanks
(Sorry I can't directly upload the pictures. I don't have the 10 reputation that's required to post images since I just made the account)
First of all, you can define the events in your jquery, no need to put this in your HTML. When you use keydown, the key isn't registered yet, this happens after this event is fired. You can simply bind change, keydown & keyup to cover all events and get the correct value.
$('#myTextarea').bind('change keydown keyup',function (){
console.log($(this).val());
});
http://jsfiddle.net/KYhzK/
Your answer lays in the Events, you can use onkeyup event instead of onkeydown
onkeydown triggers when you press the keyboard key
onkeyup triggers when you release the keyboard key
Edit:
Since you are using Jquery:
$(document).ready(function(function(){
$("#myTextarea").keyup(function(){
console.log($(this).val());
});
});
Try changing onkeydown to onkeyup. The keydown event more likely happens before the textbox has updated, so it will log the previous value instead of the new one.
since you're using jquery for it, try:
$('#myTextarea').keyup(function (){ console.log($(this).val());});
this will give you the current typed in the textarea
When using .keydown I can capture keydown event, then check and prevent default action (display the character).
When using .keyup I cannot?
I know the event is being captured as alert() fires when the code is inside the condition yet the preventDefault() doesn't prevent the action.
Here is a full DEMO
In keyup event the character has been typed and can't be undone but in keydown nothing has been typed and the browser has intent to type the character, so you can cancel the browser intent.
Whenever you type a character the following events occur:
keydown --> keypress repeatedly until the key is released --> keyup
keydown -> can be prevented -> fired when press a key
keypress -> can be prevented -> fired when hold a key
keyup -> cannot be prevented -> fired when release a key
the keydown() event is fired when the key is hit, meaning that code can be executed before the key is released.
When the key is pressed code can prevent an action, because it simply hasn't happened yet, whereas on the keyup() event, it already has.
e.g. a character has already been inserted into an input field when triggering keyup()
in general, keydown and keyup produce the same keycodes (when used with a given event)
however keypress gives you the physical key pressed (ASCII code returned rather than keyCode)
If I type 'St', by the time I press the t, if I output the input of textfield.value in the onkeypress/onkeydown functions, I only get 'S'.
Why is this? How do I get rid of this lag?
use the keyup event instead of keypress. keydown will show the before-keystroke value, as will keypress (apparently).
Within the keypress event, it's still possible to prevent the typed character from registering, so the input's value canot be updated until after the keypress event. You can use the keyup event instead, or use window.setTimeout() to set up a delay.
Because the keystroke is not registered until keyup event occurs. So you should detect onkeyup event instead of onkeypress.
What is the difference between these three events? Upon googling I found that:
The onKeyDown event is triggered when the user presses a key.
The onKeyUp event is triggered when the user releases a key.
The onKeyPress event is triggered when the user presses & releases a key
(onKeyDown followed by onKeyUp).
I understand the first two, but isn't onKeyPress the same as onKeyUp? Is it possible to release a key (onKeyUp) without pressing it (onKeyDown)?
This is a bit confusing, can someone clear this up for me?
NOTE KeyPress is now deprecated. Use KeyDown instead.
KeyPress, KeyUp and KeyDown are analogous to, respectively: Click, MouseUp, and MouseDown.
Down happens first
Press happens second (when text is entered)
Up happens last (when text input is complete).
The exception is webkit, which has an extra event in there:
keydown
keypress
textInput
keyup
Below is a snippet you can use to see for yourself when the events get fired:
window.addEventListener("keyup", log);
window.addEventListener("keypress", log);
window.addEventListener("keydown", log);
function log(event){
console.log( event.type );
}
Check here for the archived link originally used in this answer.
From that link:
In theory, the onKeyDown and onKeyUp events represent keys being pressed or released, while the onKeyPress event represents a character being typed. The implementation of the theory is not same in all browsers.
Most of the answers here are focused more on theory than practical matters and there's some big differences between keyup and keypress as it pertains to input field values, at least in Firefox (tested in 43).
If the user types 1 into an empty input element:
The value of the input element will be an empty string (old value) inside the keypress handler
The value of the input element will be 1 (new value) inside the keyup handler.
This is of critical importance if you are doing something that relies on knowing the new value after the input rather than the current value such as inline validation or auto tabbing.
Scenario:
The user types 12345 into an input element.
The user selects the text 12345.
The user types the letter A.
When the keypress event fires after entering the letter A, the text box now contains only the letter A.
But:
Field.val() is 12345.
$Field.val().length is 5
The user selection is an empty string (preventing you from determining what was deleted by overwriting the selection).
So it seems that the browser (Firefox 43) erases the user's selection, then fires the keypress event, then updates the fields contents, then fires keyup.
First, they have different meaning: they fire:
KeyDown – when a key was pushed down
KeyUp – when a pushed button was released, and after the value of input/textarea is updated (the only one among these)
KeyPress – between those and doesn't actually mean a key was pushed and released (see below). Not only it has inconsistent semantics, it was deprecated, so one shouldn't probably use it (see also this summary)
Second, some keys fire some of these events and don't fire others. For instance,
KeyPress ignores delete, arrows, PgUp/PgDn, home/end, ctrl, alt, shift etc while KeyDown and KeyUp don't (see details about esc below);
when you switch window via alt+tab in Windows, only KeyDown for alt fires because window switching happens before any other event (and KeyDown for tab is prevented by system, I suppose, at least in Chrome 71).
Also, you should keep in mind that event.keyCode (and event.which) usually have same value for KeyDown and KeyUp but different one for KeyPress. Try the playground I've created. By the way, I've noticed quite a quirk: in Chrome, when I press ctrl+a and the input/textarea is empty, for KeyPress fires with event.keyCode (and event.which) equal to 1! (when the input is not empty, it doesn't fire at all).
Note: these days, using event.key is the most useful option as it is standardized across browsers, OSes and events (afaik).
Finally, there's some pragmatics:
For handling arrows, you'll probably need to use onKeyDown: if user holds ↓, KeyDown fires several times (while KeyUp fires only once when they release the button). Also, in some cases you can easily prevent propagation of KeyDown but can't (or can't that easily) prevent propagation of KeyUp (for instance, if you want to submit on enter without adding newline to the text field).
Suprisingly, when you hold a key, say in textarea, both KeyPress and KeyDown fire multiple times (Chrome 71), I'd use KeyDown if I need the event that fires multiple times and KeyUp for single key release.
KeyDown is usually better for games when you have to provide better responsiveness to their actions.
esc is usually processed via KeyDown: KeyPress doesn't fire and KeyUp behaves differently for inputs and textareas in different browsers (mostly due to loss of focus)
If you'd like to adjust height of a text area to the content, you probably won't use onKeyDown but rather onKeyPress (PS ok, it's actually better to use onChange for this case).
I've used all 3 in my project but unfortunately may have forgotten some of pragmatics. (to be noted: there's also input and change events)
onkeydown is fired when the key is down (like in shortcuts; for example, in Ctrl+A, Ctrl is held 'down'.
onkeyup is fired when the key is released (including modifier/etc keys)
onkeypress is fired as a combination of onkeydown and onkeyup, or depending on keyboard repeat (when onkeyup isn't fired). (this repeat behaviour is something that I haven't tested. If you do test, add a comment!)
textInput (webkit only) is fired when some text is entered (for example, Shift+A would enter uppercase 'A', but Ctrl+A would select text and not enter any text input. In that case, all other events are fired)
This article by Jan Wolter is the best piece I have came across, you can find the archived copy here if link is dead.
It explains all browser key events really well,
The keydown event occurs when the key is pressed, followed immediately by the keypress event. Then the keyup event is generated when the key is released.
To understand the difference between keydown and keypress, it is useful to distinguish between characters and keys. A key is a physical button on the computer's keyboard. A character is a symbol typed by pressing a button. On a US keyboard, hitting the 4 key while holding down the Shift key typically produces a "dollar sign" character. This is not necessarily the case on every keyboard in the world. In theory, the keydown and keyup events represent keys being pressed or released, while the keypress event represents a character being typed. In practice, this is not always the way it is implemented.
For a while, some browers fired an additional event, called textInput, immediately after keypress. Early versions of the DOM 3 standard intended this as a replacement for the keypress event, but the whole notion was later revoked. Webkit supported this between versions 525 and 533, and I'm told IE supported it, but I never detected that, possibly because Webkit required it to be called textInput while IE called it textinput.
There is also an event called input, supported by all browsers, which is fired just after a change is made to to a textarea or input field. Typically keypress will fire, then the typed character will appear in the text area, then input will fire. The input event doesn't actually give any information about what key was typed - you'd have to inspect the textbox to figure it out what changed - so we don't really consider it a key event and don't really document it here. Though it was originally defined only for textareas and input boxes, I believe there is some movement toward generalizing it to fire on other types of objects as well.
It seems that onkeypress and onkeydown do the same (whithin the small difference of shortcut keys already mentioned above).
You can try this:
<textarea type="text" onkeypress="this.value=this.value + 'onkeypress '"></textarea>
<textarea type="text" onkeydown="this.value=this.value + 'onkeydown '" ></textarea>
<textarea type="text" onkeyup="this.value=this.value + 'onkeyup '" ></textarea>
And you will see that the events onkeypress and onkeydown are both triggered while the key is pressed and not when the key is pressed.
The difference is that the event is triggered not once but many times (as long as you hold the key pressed). Be aware of that and handle them accordingly.
Updated Answer:
KeyDown
Fires multiple times when you hold keys down.
Fires meta key.
KeyPress
Fires multiple times when you hold keys down.
Does not fire meta keys.
KeyUp
Fires once at the end when you release key.
Fires meta key.
This is the behavior in both addEventListener and jQuery.
https://jsbin.com/vebaholamu/1/edit?js,console,output <-- try example
(answer has been edited with correct response, screenshot & example)
The onkeypress event works for all the keys except ALT, CTRL, SHIFT, ESC in all browsers where as onkeydown event works for all keys. Means onkeydown event captures all the keys.
Just wanted to share a curiosity:
when using the onkeydown event to activate a JS method, the charcode for that event is NOT the same as the one you get with onkeypress!
For instance the numpad keys will return the same charcodes as the number keys above the letter keys when using onkeypress, but NOT when using onkeydown !
Took me quite a few seconds to figure out why my script which checked for certain charcodes failed when using onkeydown!
Demo: https://www.w3schools.com/code/tryit.asp?filename=FMMBXKZLP1MK
and yes. I do know the definition of the methods are different.. but the thing that is very confusing is that in both methods the result of the event is retrieved using event.keyCode.. but they do not return the same value.. not a very declarative implementation.
Basically, these events act differently on different browser type and version, I created a little jsBin test and you can check the console for find out how these events behavior for your targeted environment, hope this help. http://jsbin.com/zipivadu/10/edit
The difference which I observed between keyup and keydown is
if we attach a eventhandler for keydown event and log the input box value i.e
(e.target.value) it returns whatever the value was before keydown event
But if we attach a eventhandler for keyup event and log the input box value
it returns the latest value including the key which was pressed
LETS UNDERSTAND WITH EXAMPLE
// the latest keypressed is not shown in e.target.value
// when keydown event handler is executed
// since until the keyup is not triggered
// the input box will not have that character in its value
const searchCitiesEleKeyDown = document.querySelector("#searchCities");
searchCitiesEleKeyDown.addEventListener("keydown", (e) => {
console.log(e.target.value);
});
// but in case of keyup event the e.target.value prints
// the text box content with the latest character pressed
// since as soon as the keyup event triggers
// the input box will have that character pressed in its value
const searchCitiesEleKeyUp = document.querySelector("#searchCities");
searchCitiesEleKeyUp.addEventListener("keyup", (e) => {
console.log(e.target.value);
});
<input type="text" id="searchCities" />
CodeSandbox Link
https://codesandbox.io/s/keydown-vs-keyup-wpj33m
A few practical facts that might be useful to decide which event to handle (run the script below and focus on the input box):
$('input').on('keyup keydown keypress',e=>console.log(e.type, e.keyCode, e.which, e.key))
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.3.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<input/>
Pressing:
non inserting/typing keys (e.g. Shift, Ctrl) will not trigger a keypress. Press Ctrl and release it:
keydown 17 17 Control
keyup 17 17 Control
keys from keyboards that apply characters transformations to other characters may lead to Dead and duplicate "keys" (e.g. ~, ´) on keydown. Press ´ and release it in order to display a double ´´:
keydown 192 192 Dead
keydown 192 192 ´´
keypress 180 180 ´
keypress 180 180 ´
keyup 192 192 Dead
Additionally, non typing inputs (e.g. ranged <input type="range">) will still trigger all keyup, keydown and keypress events according to the pressed keys.
BLAZOR....
If you want to check which key is pressed use onkeypress OR onkeydown but if you want to get the text from the text field and then check the last key pressed for example you are scanning a barcode and you want to fire an even when the ENTER key is pressed (almost all barcode scanners send 13 "ENTER" in the last) then you should use onkeyup otherwise you will not get the text typed in the text field.
For example
<input type="text" class="form-control" #bind="#barcode" #onkeyup="BarCodeScan" placeholder="Scan" />
This will call the BarCodeScan function immediately after you will press enter by typing the code or if you scan it from scanner the BarCodeScan function will be called automatically. If you will use "onkeypress" or "onkeydown" here then the bind will not take place and you will not get the text from the text field.