Event handler not working in Internet Explorer

Question

I am creating a website using JavaScript. The purpose of the JS part is to attach my own keyboard handler to certain text fields. I managed to narrow down the problem to the code as simple as this fiddle:
http://jsfiddle.net/k9s3n/1/

In Firefox, Opera and Chrome, typing a character in any of the three fields results in displaying an alert box with the key code. In Internet Explorer (IE8 in my case, that's the lowest version I usually support), however, only input3 works properly - that is, it is the only field to display the dialog box when releasing a key. Trying to type in the other two boxes gives no results, it just logs an error in the console:

keyCode is null or isn't an object

(not sure if the error message is right, I translated it from my native language).

It seems that only the third solution works regardless of the browser, but in my scenario I have to use the first one or the second one.

I have created another fiddle for further investigation:
http://jsfiddle.net/bSdaJ/
Both of the buttons, when clicked, cause a message box to display. In Firefox, Opera and Chrome, the box says "[object MouseEvent]", while in IE it says "undefined".
What can I do about that?

P.S. As indicated by the first fiddle, everything works fine if I use inline event handling. However, my goal in this project is to separate HTML and JS completely, so I cannot use that. I'm doing it for a friend and I want the HTML part to be plain, clear markup code.

Answer 1

try this:

function clickHandler(e) {
    if(!e)
        e = window.event;
    alert(e);
}

Answer 2

try this:

function funcToCall(e)
{

    //alert('here');
    var keycode;
    if (window.event)
    {
        if (window.event.keyCode == '112') {  // F1 was pressed

        // call your methods in this area

        window.event.returnValue = false;
        return false;
        }

    }   
    else if(e) 
    {
        if (e.which == '112') {  // F1 was pressed, search for other keycodes

        // call your methods in this area

        e.preventDefault();
        return false;

        }

    }   
}

call on your textfield:

onKeyDown="funcToCall(event)"