Proposal: addKeyListener and removeKeyListener Methods

Hi, DOM3 Events fans-

Since DOM3 Events now has a more robust (and standardized) keyboard 
event model, it seemed appropriate to consider more closely how it might 
be used.  As an input device, the keyboard is particularly complicated, 
with many keys having dedicated functionality.  To some degree, I 
addressed this in the description of default actions of the 'keydown' 
event [1], but there have been many times where I wished to listen only 
to specific keys.  It's easy enough to filter out the keys using the 
"if...else" or "switch" statements in the event handler, but it would be 
nice to attach different listeners to different keys to dispatch to 
different event handlers.

Thus, I've tentatively added a proposal for new 'addKeyListener' and 
'removeKeyListener' methods to the Event interface, which you can review 
and comment on in the latest draft. [2]

I'm open to suggestions to improve this idea, and obviously it depends 
on implementers' willingness to include it, but I would personally like 
some mechanism to do this.

[1] 
http://dev.w3.org/2006/webapi/DOM-Level-3-Events/html/DOM3-Events.html#event-type-keydown
[2] 
http://dev.w3.org/2006/webapi/DOM-Level-3-Events/html/DOM3-Events.html#interface-Event

Regards-
-Doug Schepers
W3C Team Contact, SVG and WebApps WGs

Received on Saturday, 12 September 2009 20:36:39 UTC