Indicates whether the Alt key is active (true) or inactive (false) on Windows; indicates whether the Option key is active on Mac OS.

Contains the character code value of the key pressed or released. The character code values are English keyboard values. For example, if you press Shift+3, charCode is # on a Japanese keyboard, just as it is on an English keyboard.

Note: When an input method editor (IME) is running, charCode does not report accurate character codes.

Related API Elements

Indicates whether the Command key is active (true) or inactive (false). Supported for Mac OS only. On Mac OS, the commandKey property has the same value as the ctrlKey property.

Indicates whether the Control key is active (true) or inactive (false). On Windows and Linux, this is also true when the Ctrl key is active.

On Windows and Linux, indicates whether the Ctrl key is active (true) or inactive (false); On Mac OS, indicates whether either the Ctrl key or the Command key is active.

The key code value of the key pressed or released.

Note: When an input method editor (IME) is running, keyCode does not report accurate key codes.

Related API Elements

Indicates the location of the key on the keyboard. This is useful for differentiating keys that appear more than once on a keyboard. For example, you can differentiate between the left and right Shift keys by the value of this property: KeyLocation.LEFT for the left and KeyLocation.RIGHT for the right. Another example is differentiating between number keys pressed on the standard keyboard (KeyLocation.STANDARD) versus the numeric keypad (KeyLocation.NUM_PAD).

Indicates whether the Shift key modifier is active (true) or inactive (false).

Creates an Event object that contains specific information about keyboard events. Event objects are passed as parameters to event listeners.

Related API Elements

Creates a copy of the KeyboardEvent object and sets the value of each property to match that of the original.

Returns a string that contains all the properties of the KeyboardEvent object. The string is in the following format:

[KeyboardEvent type=value bubbles=value cancelable=value ... shiftKey=value]

Indicates that the display should be rendered after processing of this event completes, if the display list has been modified

The KeyboardEvent.KEY_DOWN constant defines the value of the type property of a keyDown event object.

This event has the following properties:

Related API Elements

The KeyboardEvent.KEY_UP constant defines the value of the type property of a keyUp event object.

This event has the following properties:

Related API Elements

1. It creates a new Sprite instance named child.
2. It declares properties for later use in setting a square's background color and size.
3. Using methods of Sprite, it draws a light-blue square that it displays on the Stage at default coordinates (0,0) by calling the addChild() method.
4. It adds one mouse event and two keyboard type event listeners:
   • click/clickHandler which is dispatched when you click on the square to set focus on the child sprite so it can listen for keyboard events.
   • keyDown/keyDownHandler which is dispatched whenever any key is pressed. The subscriber method prints information about the event using the trace() statement.
   • keyUp/keyUpHandler which is dispatched when a key is released.

When you test this example, you need to click the square first for the keyboard events to work.

Also, if you are using the Test Movie command in Flash, the authoring interface may respond to certain keys instead of the event listeners attached to the child sprite.

package {
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import flash.display.DisplayObject;
    import flash.events.*;

    public class KeyboardEventExample extends Sprite {
        private var child:Sprite = new Sprite();
        private var bgColor:uint = 0x00CCFF;
        private var size:uint = 80;

        public function KeyboardEventExample() {
            child.graphics.beginFill(bgColor);
            child.graphics.drawRect(0, 0, size, size);
            child.graphics.endFill();
            addChild(child);
            child.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, clickHandler);
            child.addEventListener(KeyboardEvent.KEY_DOWN, keyDownHandler);
            child.addEventListener(KeyboardEvent.KEY_UP, keyUpHandler);
            
        }

        private function clickHandler(event:MouseEvent):void {
            stage.focus = child;
        }

        private function keyDownHandler(event:KeyboardEvent):void {
            trace("keyDownHandler: " + event.keyCode);
            trace("ctrlKey: " + event.ctrlKey);
            trace("keyLocation: " + event.keyLocation);
            trace("shiftKey: " + event.shiftKey);
            trace("altKey: " + event.altKey);

        }

        private function keyUpHandler(event:KeyboardEvent):void {
            trace("keyUpHandler: " + event.keyCode);
        }
        
        
    }
}