focus() not working in safari or chrome

Question

Hello everyone,

I have a div that has been given a tabindex, when the div is focused(click or tabbed to) it does the following:

inserts an input into itself, gives the input focus

this works great in FF, IE and Opera

but in Chome/Safari it gives the input focus but fails to actually put the cursor inside the input (I know it gives it focus because the safari/chrome focus borders appear).

Any suggestions as to what is going on?

I have to fix the key handler after this so the arrow keys and backspace keys work too, feel free to chime in on that if you'd like.

Thank you in advance!

Here's a sample of the code:

var recipientDomElem = $("#recipientsDiv");
recipientDomElem[0].tabIndex = 0;
$("#recipientsDiv").focus(function(e){
var code = (e.keyCode ? e.keyCode : e.which);
window.clearTimeout(statusTimer);
recipientDivHandler(code, null);
});


function recipientDivHandler(code, element){
$("#recipientsDiv").append('<input type="text" id="toInput" class="inlineBlockElement rightSpacer" style="border:0px none #ffffff; padding:0px; width:40px;margin-bottom:3px;padding:0; overflow:hidden; font-size:11px;" />');
$("#toInput").focus();
}

Another oddity about this is that tabbing through to the div will fire the div.focus() function and correctly give the input focus...it's just the click that fails. I tried putting a .click() function on the div to do the same as the focus, but it's not working.

Answer 1

according to the html 4.01 standard, tabindex does not apply to divs.

Answer 2

Your problem is likely that you're not appending a DOM object, you're appending explicit HTML to your page -- and I doubt that Safari is updating the DOM behind the scenes.

Try to use the actual DOM methods like document.createElement() to append your input to the DOM, as described in a number of places (such as here or here or here), and then see if the Safari problem persists.

All that said, the way that you describe the issue arising -- on clicks but not tabs, for example -- would argue that the problem isn't going to be this... so now I'm curious. (In any event, using DOM methods is really the right way to add elements, so it's not a bad idea to do it anyway.)

Answer 3

Although I couldn't find this specifically stated anywhere, .focus() only works on input elements and links. It also isn't supported properly in Chrome and Safari. I posted a demo here to show you what I mean. Also note that focus() and focusin() (v1.4) have the same results.

So that being determined, try changing your function to .click()

$("#recipientsDiv").click(function(e){ ... })

Answer 4

I got the answer on my own...it might seem weak, and too simple...but it works.

Ready for this awesomeness..?

Just add a timer of 0 to the focus...for some reason it just gives it enough time to fully load the input into the DOM.

function recipientDivHandler(code, element){
$("#recipientsDiv").append('<input type="text" id="toInput" class="inlineBlockElement rightSpacer" style="border:0px none #ffffff; padding:0px; width:40px;margin-bottom:3px;padding:0; overflow:hidden; font-size:11px;" />');
setTimeout(function(){$("#toInput").focus();},0);
}

If someone else can further explain this or has a better answer please feel free to take the stage :-)