Javascript event triggered by pressing space

Try this:

$('input:text').keypress(function(e) {
    if (e.keyCode == 0 || e.keyCode == 32) // `0` works in mozilla and `32` in other browsers
       console.log('space pressed');
});

Try to bind your key event listener to the jQuery $(document) object;

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN">
<html>
  <head>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.6.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript">
      $(document).ready(function() {
        $(document).keydown(function(e) {
          if (e.keyCode == '32') {
            alert('space');
          }
        });
      });
    </script>
  </head>
  <body>
  </body>
</html>

These events bubble up, so if you're trying to trigger the event wherever your focus is (ie. not in an input), just bind a handler on window:

$(window).keypress(function (e) {
  if (e.key === ' ' || e.key === 'Spacebar') {
    // ' ' is standard, 'Spacebar' was used by IE9 and Firefox < 37
    e.preventDefault()
    console.log('Space pressed')
  }
})

Also see the list of all .key values.