To perform an action when the escape key has been released:

Edit code and click me	Your Result (Some examples do not work in Google Chrome):
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> <html> <head> <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript"> $(document).ready(function(){ $(document).keyup(function(event){ if (event.keyCode == 27) { alert('escaped!'); } }); }); </script> </head> <body> Press me and then escape button (because of window focus) </body> </html>
Edit the code above and click to see the result	www.xhtml.co.il - Try it yourself