javascript - jQuery keypress() event not firing?

Question

I am trying to fire an event on the right and left arrow key presses with jQuery. Using the following code, I can fire events on any of the alphanumeric keys, but the cursor keys (up, down, left, right) fire nothing. I am developing the site primarily for IE users because it is a line of business app. Am I doing something wrong here?

$('document').keypress(function(e){
    switch (e.which) {
        case 40:
            alert('down');
            break;
        case 38:
            alert('up');
            break;
        case 37:
            alert('left');
            break;
        case 39:
            alert('right');
            break;
        default:
            alert('???');  
            }      
});

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/492865/jquery-keypress-event-not-firing

Answer 1

e.which doesn't work in IE try e.keyCode, also you probably want to use keydown() instead of keypress() if you are targeting IE.

See http://unixpapa.com/js/key.html for more information.