How to get LOCALIZED character on keypress?

Using the keypress event will give you the character typed, regardless of keyboard layout.

document.onkeypress = function(evt) {
    evt = evt || window.event;
    var charCode = evt.which || evt.keyCode;
    var charTyped = String.fromCharCode(charCode);
    alert("Character typed: " + charTyped);
};

Here's my usual link to Jan Wolter's excellent page documenting JavaScript key handling: http://unixpapa.com/js/key.html