Using keyCode with a DOMString is confusing about keyboard-lock HOT 1 CLOSED

Keys are specified using code; see the code column at http://w3c.github.io/uievents/tools/key-event-viewer.html for an interactive demonstration.

Modifiers are considered to be implicit. The use-case is that applications that request specific keys do so because those keys are important. For example, a game that uses WASD for movement and Ctrl for "fire" would run afoul of Ctrl+W is the user tried to fire while moving forward. Rather than require such apps to register every combination of keys the user has configured (which requires it to understand which of those keys are modifiers), the design is that it simply requests the keys it needs and all combinations involving that keys are implicitly reserved.

One possible refinement would be for the user agent to reserve the set of shortcuts comprised of the cross-product of the requested modifier and non-modifier keys. For example, Alt+Tab would not be reserved if the app requested [Tab], but would be if the app requested [Alt, Tab]. I have no strong objection to this, but it seems overcomplicated.

from keyboard-lock.