How to take keyboard input in JavaScript?

You can do this by registering an event handler on the document or any element you want to observe keystrokes on and examine the key related properties of the event object.

Example that works in FF and Webkit-based browsers:

document.addEventListener('keydown', function(event) {
    if(event.keyCode == 37) {
        alert('Left was pressed');
    }
    else if(event.keyCode == 39) {
        alert('Right was pressed');
    }
});

DEMO