Javascript change event on input element fires on only losing focus

(function () {
    var oldVal;

    $('#name').on('change textInput input', function () {
        var val = this.value;
        if (val !== oldVal) {
            oldVal = val;
            checkLength(val);
        }
    });
}());

This will catch change, keystrokes, paste, textInput, input (when available). And not fire more than necessary.

http://jsfiddle.net/katspaugh/xqeDj/

References:

textInput — a W3C DOM Level 3 event type. http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-3-Events/#events-textevents

A user agent must dispatch this event when one or more characters have
been entered. These characters may originate from a variety of
sources, e.g., characters resulting from a key being pressed or
released on a keyboard device, from the processing of an input method
editor, or resulting from a voice command. Where a “paste” operation
generates a simple sequence of characters, i.e., a text passage
without any structure or style information, this event type should be
generated as well.

input — an HTML5 event type.

Fired at controls when the user changes the value

Firefox, Chrome, IE9 and other modern browsers support it.

This event occurs immediately after modification, unlike the onchange event, which occurs when the element loses focus.