Keyboard Lock

While in fullscreen, this API allows apps to receive keys that are normally handled by the system or the browser like Cmd/Alt-Tab, or Esc. Users can escape keyboard lock (and fullscreen) by holding the Esc key for two seconds.

Comments

The feature is useful for any immersive application that wants access to keys not normally available to websites. Examples include games that want to disable the default behaviour of the Windows key (which would normally open the Windows start menu) or the Escape key (which would normally exit full-screen mode), or remote desktop applications that want to send key combinations like Alt+Tab to a remote computer rather than processing them locally.

Demo

• (see explainer)

Documentation

• https://w3c.github.io/keyboard-lock/
• https://github.com/w3c/keyboard-lock/blob/gh-pages/explainer.md
• https://discourse.wicg.io/t/proposal-system-keyboard-lock-api/1594

Specification

Editor's draft

Status in Chromium

Blink components: Blink>Input

Enabled by default (tracking bug) in:

• Chrome for desktop release 68

Consensus & Standardization

• Firefox: No public signals
• Edge: No public signals
• Safari: No public signals
• Web Developers: No signals

Owners

• denizz@chromium.org
• garykac@chromium.org
• jamiewalch@chromium.org
• dominickn@chromium.org
• mgiuca@chromium.org
• joedow@chromium.org

Last updated on 2020-04-29