Tips for making a component visible and directing the keyboard focus to its input field in iOS Safari

Question

Tips for making a component visible and directing the keyboard focus to its input field in iOS Safari

After some experimenting, I managed to enable text selection on iOS by utilizing

e.target.setSelectionRange(0, 999)

:

    onUp(e){
      e.preventDefault() // To counter the default behavior of placing the caret between characters on mouse up.
      e.target.setSelectionRange(0, 999) // Select (most likely) all the text in the input field.
    }

  <input @mouseup="onUp" v-model="input"/>

https://codepen.io/kslstn/pen/ZvoEQa

However, this functionality is limited to trusted events - events directly caused by user interaction (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Event/isTrusted). My goal is to reveal a hidden Vue component when requested by the user through a click. Upon display, the content within the input field of that component should automatically be selected.

I went through several attempts:

Setting the selection range when the component mounts (in mounted() hook). This proved ineffective as it was not triggered by a trusted event.
Having the click event that reveals the component handle the text selection by targeting its ID. However, this method was messy and unsuccessful since the component wasn't yet in the DOM during the click event.
Implementing a setTimeout in conjunction with the second approach. Nonetheless, the untrusted nature of the timeout event prevented the desired text selection.

Am I asking for too much?

javascript vue.js vuejs2 html-input

Answer 1

Answer №1

If your DOM element lacks focus, you will not be able to use the setSelectionRange function. While it works in your codepen where the element has focus (and you should consider using the focus event instead of mouseup), it won't work when a component is mounted.

Update: Although this method generally works, it seems to have limitations on IOS. According to this source:

setSelectionRange does not function on iOS if the element does not have focus. It's also worth noting that any actions related to giving text inputs focus are highly unreliable on mobile Safari.

The reference mentioned states:

Starting from iOS 5, handlers triggered by synthesized click events are allowed to trigger focus on input elements. Check out the updated FastClick input focus example.

Therefore, it may be necessary to simulate a click event on the input to ensure focus is obtained.

Update (again): It might be more effective to select text on focus. I have adjusted my code accordingly. If focus functions programmatically, the text will be selected upon component appearance; otherwise, selection will occur when tapping on the field.

new Vue({
  el: '#app',
  data: {
    showing: false
  },
  components: {
    autoSelected: {
      data() {
        return {
          text: 'hi there'
        }
      },
      mounted() {
        this.$refs.input.focus();
      },
      methods: {
        selectText(e) {
          e.target.setSelectionRange(0, 9999);
        }
      }
    }
  },
  methods: {
    showIt() {
      this.showing = true;
    }
  }
});

<script src="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/vue/2.4.2/vue.min.js"></script>
<div id="app">
  <button @click="showIt">Show it</button>
  <auto-selected v-if="showing" inline-template>
    <input ref="input" v-model="text" @focus="selectText">
  </auto-selected>
</div>

Answer 2

If your DOM element lacks focus, you will not be able to use the setSelectionRange function. While it works in your codepen where the element has focus (and you should consider using the focus event instead of mouseup), it won't work when a component is mounted.

Update: Although this method generally works, it seems to have limitations on IOS. According to this source:

setSelectionRange does not function on iOS if the element does not have focus. It's also worth noting that any actions related to giving text inputs focus are highly unreliable on mobile Safari.

The reference mentioned states:

Starting from iOS 5, handlers triggered by synthesized click events are allowed to trigger focus on input elements. Check out the updated FastClick input focus example.

Therefore, it may be necessary to simulate a click event on the input to ensure focus is obtained.

Update (again): It might be more effective to select text on focus. I have adjusted my code accordingly. If focus functions programmatically, the text will be selected upon component appearance; otherwise, selection will occur when tapping on the field.

new Vue({
  el: '#app',
  data: {
    showing: false
  },
  components: {
    autoSelected: {
      data() {
        return {
          text: 'hi there'
        }
      },
      mounted() {
        this.$refs.input.focus();
      },
      methods: {
        selectText(e) {
          e.target.setSelectionRange(0, 9999);
        }
      }
    }
  },
  methods: {
    showIt() {
      this.showing = true;
    }
  }
});

<script src="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/vue/2.4.2/vue.min.js"></script>
<div id="app">
  <button @click="showIt">Show it</button>
  <auto-selected v-if="showing" inline-template>
    <input ref="input" v-model="text" @focus="selectText">
  </auto-selected>
</div>

Tips for making a component visible and directing the keyboard focus to its input field in iOS Safari

Answer №1

Similar questions

How can I dynamically assign the formControlName to an <input> element within Angular?

You should only call them after the method that returns a promise has completed

What causes Angular to consistently redirect to the homepage?

What is the best way to align two bootstrap buttons next to each other?

What are the steps to install the LTS release of NodeJS if Node 10 is already installed on my system?

Using a variable as a location URL: A step-by-step guide

Adding information to an array within a document in a MongoDB database

When incorporating reduce into your code, remember to expect an undefined

Ways to Conceal/Deactivate Information in HTML

Remove webpack functions from the bundle

Scripts for Azure mobile services

Unable to send a post request using ajax

Disabling form submission when pressing the enter key

How can I redirect to another page when an item is clicked in AngularJS?

How can you annotate and inherit a class method that returns an array of itself?

Traversing an array in JavaScript to create a new array

Tips for preventing Unknown event codes in POST request responses

Challenges with Pushing Arrays to JavaScript Class Prototype

Having trouble with the Ng multiselect dropdown displaying empty options?

Incorporating JSON Objects within AngularJS