How to Make Your Website More Convenient with Keyboard Shortcuts
Are you a fan of keyboard shortcuts? They can be a real time-saver, don’t you agree? Well, what if I told you that you could add keyboard shortcuts to your own website? Imagine how much easier it would be for your visitors to navigate and access important features.
In this post, I’ll show you a simple way to incorporate shortcuts into your web page using a JavaScript library called Mousetrap. With Mousetrap, you can assign specific keys like Shift, Ctrl, Alt, Options, and Command to trigger specific functions on your website. The best part? It’s even compatible with older browsers!
But that’s not all! Here are a few more exciting topics you can explore on usamerica:
- Discover how to create eye-catching tooltips with Hint.Css
- Learn how to build interactive step-by-step guides using Intro.Js [Tutorial]
- Find out the secrets to styling HTML5 range sliders
Contents
How to Use Cookies and HTML5 Local Storage
So, you want to learn how to use cookies and HTML5 local storage? Well, you’ve come to the right place! I’m going to walk you through the process step by step.
Getting Started
First things first, let’s create a brand new HTML document. Don’t forget to link the Mousetrap library! We’ll be using the Mousetrap library hosted on CDNjs. It’s super fast and reliable, so it’s better than hosting it ourselves.
Alright, now that we have our HTML document and the library linked, it’s time to dive into the fun stuff. We’re going to use the Mousetrap ‘bind’ method to attach keyboard keys to functions. You have a few options here – you can assign a single key, a key combination, or even a sequence of keys. It’s totally up to you!
Single Key
Let’s start with the basics. In this example, we’ll bind the letter ‘s’ to a function. Whenever you press the ‘s’ key, your function will be triggered. Pretty cool, right? Here’s how you do it:
Mousetrap.bind(‘s’, function(e) {
// your function here
});
Combination Key
Now, let’s kick it up a notch. In this example, we’ll bind the Ctrl key and the ‘s’ key together to perform a function. So, whenever you press both keys at the same time, your designated function will be executed. Let’s check it out:
Mousetrap.bind(‘ctrl+s’, function(e) {
// your function here.
});
How to Create a Secret Key Combo in a Web-Based Game
Did you know that you can add a secret hidden key combination to your web-based game? With Mousetrap, a JavaScript library, you can make your game even more exciting!
Mousetrap.bind(‘g s’, function(e) {
// your function here.
});
How to Use Mousetrap
Let me show you how to create some awesome keyboard shortcuts for your website using Mousetrap and jQuery.
Are you ready? Let’s get started!
First, we’ll create a keyboard shortcut that allows users to quickly focus on the search input field.
1. Here’s the HTML markup for the search input field with an id:
2. Let’s move on to creating a function that will take care of the search input for us.
function search()
3. Finally, we’ll assign a key to trigger the function.
Mousetrap.bind(‘/’, search);
4. And that’s all there is to it. Now, whenever you press the / button, you’ll be able to easily navigate to the search input.
If you want to use a different shortcut than the default key combination, Ctrl/Cmd + F, you can do that too. Many desktop apps use this popular key shortcut for searching, and you can bind it to your desired key combination.
With Mousetrap, you can bind the search function to a different key combination like [‘command+f’, ‘ctrl+f’].
Making Mousetrap work with Bootstrap
Integrating Mousetrap with a framework like Bootstrap is a breeze. Let’s say you want to display a helpful window containing a list of shortcuts available on your website. In this example, you can use the Bootstrap Modal to present the list, and assign the “?” key to show the modal.
Even though the “?” key is only accessible with the Shift key, you can bind just the “?” key to achieve the desired functionality.
Mousetrap.bind(‘?’, function() {
$(‘#help’).modal(‘show’);
});
Now, whenever you press the “?” key, a popup window will appear.
A Helpful Tip for Efficient Key Binding
As you accumulate more and more keyboard shortcuts, you might find that they start to clutter your code. Don’t worry, I’ve got a solution for you! There’s an extension called the “bind dictionary” that can make your key binding codes much more efficient. Just make sure you add this extension after the main Mousetrap library, mousetrap.min.js.
Now, instead of having separate lines for each key binding, you can group them all together using the handy .bind() method. Take a look at this example:
Mousetrap.bind({
‘/’: search,
‘t’: tweet,
‘?’: function modal() { $(‘#help’).modal(‘show’); },
‘j’: function next() { highLight(‘j’); },
‘k’: function prev() { highLight(‘k’); }
});
If you want to see a more advanced implementation, I’ve created a demo for you. In the demo, you can simply press the J or K key to highlight a post, and press T to tweet the currently highlighted post.
