Use the Keyboard Lock API to capture the Escape key in full screen mode.
 Thomas Steiner [GitHub](https://github.com/tomayac) [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomassteinerlinkedin) [Mastodon](https://toot.cafe/@tomayac) [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/tomayac.com) [Homepage](https://blog.tomayac.com/)
> [!NOTE]
> **Note:** As of Chrome 130 (September 2024), requesting a keyboard or pointer lock requires permission. See the article [The Keyboard Lock and the Pointer Lock APIs require permission from Chrome 130](https://developer.chrome.com/blog/keyboard-lock-pointer-lock-permission.md.txt) for more details.
If you've ever played a full screen web game that popped up an in-game dialog
that you instinctively canceled with the **Escape** key, you probably found
yourself kicked out of full screen mode.
This frustrating experience is caused by the fact that dialog and full screen
mode "fight" for the **Escape** key. It's an unequal battle because, by default,
full screen mode always wins. But how can you make the dialog the winner for the
**Escape** key? This is where the [Keyboard Lock API](https://developer.chrome.com/articles/keyboard-lock) comes into play.
## Browser support
Browser Support
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[Source](https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/Web/API/Keyboard/lock)
## Use the Keyboard Lock API
The Keyboard Lock API is available on `navigator.keyboard.` The
[`lock()`](https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/Web/API/Keyboard/lock) method of
the [`Keyboard`](https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/Web/API/Keyboard) interface
returns a promise after enabling the capture of key presses for any or all of the
keys on the physical keyboard. This method can only capture keys that are
granted access by the underlying operating system. Luckily the **Escape** key is
one of them.
If your app has a full screen mode, use the Keyboard Lock API as a progressive
enhancement by capturing the **Escape** key when requesting full screen. Unlock
(that is, no longer capture) the keyboard when leaving full screen mode using the
[`unlock()`](https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/Web/API/Keyboard/unlock) method
of the `Keyboard` interface.
```javascript
// Feature detection.
const supportsKeyboardLock =
('keyboard' in navigator) && ('lock' in navigator.keyboard);
if (supportsKeyboardLock) {
document.addEventListener('fullscreenchange', async () => {
if (document.fullscreenElement) {
// The magic happens here... 🦄
await navigator.keyboard.lock(['Escape']);
console.log('Keyboard locked.');
return;
}
navigator.keyboard.unlock();
console.log('Keyboard unlocked.');
});
}
```
This means that when the user is in full screen mode, pressing **Escape**
cancels the dialog per default. If the user presses *and holds* the **Escape**
key, they can still exit full screen mode. The best of both worlds.
## Demo
You can test both the default and the progressively enhanced variants in the
[demo](https://googlechrome.github.io/samples/fullscreen-keyboard-lock/). The demo's [source code](https://github.com/GoogleChrome/samples/tree/gh-pages/fullscreen-keyboard-lock) is less clean than
the snippet before, because it needs to show both behaviors.
[](https://googlechrome.github.io/samples/fullscreen-keyboard-lock/)
## In practice
To use this progressive enhancement in practice, just copy the previous snippet.
It's designed to work with no required changes, even with existing full screen
code. As an example see this
[PR](https://github.com/Lexxie9952/fcw.org-server/pull/204) for the game
[Freeciv](https://www.freecivweb.org/). Once the PR is merged, you can cancel
all in-game dialogs by pressing **Escape**.
## A bonus bookmarklet
Not all apps or games that support full screen mode will be open-source or
accept your patches, the following
[bookmarklet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookmarklet) can be added to your
bookmarks bar and clicked to enable better full screen mode.