Have you ever wondered how to set a hotkey to focus an input field in your React application? Follow along to learn how. We’ll even handle showing different hotkeys based on whether the user is on a Mac or Windows system.
Implementation
const SearchInput: FC = () => { const inputRef = useRef<HTMLInputElement>(null); const [actionKey, setActionKey] = useState<string>(''); useEffect(() => { // check if navigator is defined to prevent unexpected errors if browser does not support if (typeof navigator !== 'undefined') { if (/(Mac|iPhone|iPod|iPad)/i.test(navigator.platform)) { setActionKey('⌘K'); } else { setActionKey('CtrlK'); } } const handleKeyPress = (event: KeyboardEvent) => { let hotkey = false; if (typeof navigator !== 'undefined') { if (/(Mac|iPhone|iPod|iPad)/i.test(navigator.platform)) { hotkey = event.metaKey && event.key === 'k'; } else { hotkey = event.ctrlKey && event.key === 'k'; } } if (hotkey && inputRef.current) { inputRef.current.focus(); } }; // Add event listener when the component mounts document.addEventListener('keydown', handleKeyPress); // Clean up the event listener when the component unmounts return () => { document.removeEventListener('keydown', handleKeyPress); }; }, []); return ( <div className="relative"> <input ref={inputRef} type="text" className="peer block w-full border-0 px-0 py-3 text-xl focus:ring-0 sm:leading-6" /> {actionKey && ( <div className="absolute inset-y-0 right-0 flex py-3 pr-1.5"> <kbd className="inline-flex items-center rounded border border-zinc-300 px-1 font-sans text-xs text-zinc-400"> {actionKey} </kbd> </div> )} </div> );
};
- We use the
useRefhook to create a reference to the input element. - We use the
useEffecthook to add an event listener for the specified hotkey. -
navigator.platformis used to determine if the user is using a mac or windows machine so we know what hotkey to display and listen to. - calling
inputRef.current.focus()will focus the input if the hotkey is pressed -
<kbd />html element is used to denote textual user input from a keyboard MDN -
navigator.platformis technically deprecated and you could usenavigator.userAgentas an alternative.