How can I generate a keypress event in Safari with Javascript?

Question

How can I programmatically generate keypress events from Javascript code running in Safari? It looks like WebKit is using the DOM level 3 model for creating keyboard events from Javascript, and the DOM level 3 keyboard event model does not support the keypress event. Is there another way that I can use?

I'm looking for as pure a Safari/WebKit DOM solution as possible. I'd really prefer not to modify the web page, and I'd also rather not add dependencies on external libraries. I need to activate any existing keypress handlers, so it won't work to add a new handler and directly call it.

It looks like WebKit has the keyCode and charCode properties of the keypress event defined in its UIEvent class, but they are read-only. Is there any way to set those properties? The following does not work:

var evt = document.createEvent('UIEvents');
evt.initUIEvent('keypress', true, true, window, 0);
evt.keyCode = 114; // 'r'
evt.charCode = 114;
alert("keyCode = " + evt.keyCode + ", charCode = " + evt.charCode); // both 0

Setting the detail property in the call to initUIEvent also seems to have no effect.

Answer 1

http://docs.jquery.com/Events/keypress#fn

In other words, you attach a keypress event to some element. Using an element with the ID of "someid", for example:

<script language="text/javascript" src="jquery.js"></script>
<script language="text/javascript">
$(function() {
    // add a keypress handler
    $("#someid").keypress(function(e){
        alert('you just pressed ' + e.which);
    });
    // imitate the keypress
    $("#someid").keypress();
});
</script>

Answer 2

Sounds like a very similar (non browser specific) question was asked and answered already:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/202285/trigger-a-keypress-with-jqueryand-specify-which-key-was-pressed

Answer 3

Have you tried the following?

var evt = document.createEventObject()
evt.keyCode = 114
evt.charCode = 114
window.fireEvent("keypress", evt)

Answer 4

Use the TextEvent (introduced by DOM3). Since you're looking to generate keypress events, I'm guessing you're working with characters. In the code below, textToInsert is a string, and textarea the element I'm dispatching the event to.

var eventObject = document.createEvent('TextEvent');
eventObject.initTextEvent('textInput',
                          true,
                          true,
                          null,
                          textToInsert);

textarea.dispatchEvent(eventObject);

This works on Safari 3.1.2 (consequently on Chrome).