Firing a Keyboard Event in Safari, using JavaScript

Question

I'm trying to simulate a keyboard event in Safari using JavaScript.

I have tried this:

var event = document.createEvent("KeyboardEvent");
event.initKeyboardEvent("keypress", true, true, null, false, false, false, false, 115, 0);

...and also this:

var event = document.createEvent("UIEvents");
event.initUIEvent("keypress", true, true, window, 1);
event.keyCode = 115;

After trying both approaches, however, I have the same problem: after the code has been executed, the keyCode/which properties of the event object are set to 0, not 115.

Does anyone know how to reliably create and dispatch a keyboard event in Safari? (I'd prefer to achieve it in plain JavaScript if possible.)

Answer 1

I am working on DOM Keyboard Event Level 3 polyfill . In latest browsers or with this polyfill you can do something like this:

element.addEventListener("keydown", function(e){ console.log(e.key, e.char, e.keyCode) })

var e = new KeyboardEvent("keydown", {bubbles : true, cancelable : true, key : "Q", char : "Q", shiftKey : true});
element.dispatchEvent(e);

//If you need legacy property "keyCode"
// Note: In some browsers you can't overwrite "keyCode" property. (At least in Safari)
delete e.keyCode;
Object.defineProperty(e, "keyCode", {"value" : 666})

UPDATE:

Now my polyfill supports legacy properties "keyCode", "charCode" and "which"

var e = new KeyboardEvent("keydown", {
    bubbles : true,
    cancelable : true,
    char : "Q",
    key : "q",
    shiftKey : true,
    keyCode : 81
});

Examples here

Additionally here is cross-browser initKeyboardEvent separately from my polyfill: (gist)

Polyfill demo