How can I give keyboard focus to a DIV and attach keyboard event handlers to it?
JavascriptEventsKeyboardJavascript Problem Overview
I am building an application where I want to be able to click a rectangle represented by a DIV, and then use the keyboard to move that DIV by listing for keyboard events.
Rather than using an event listener for those keyboard events at the document level, can I listen for keyboard events at the DIV level, perhaps by giving it keyboard focus?
Here's a simplified sample to illustrate the problem:
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<div id="outer" style="background-color:#eeeeee;padding:10px">
outer
<div id="inner" style="background-color:#bbbbbb;width:50%;margin:10px;padding:10px;">
want to be able to focus this element and pick up keypresses
</div>
</div>
<script language="Javascript">
function onClick()
{
document.getElementById('inner').innerHTML="clicked";
document.getElementById('inner').focus();
}
//this handler is never called
function onKeypressDiv()
{
document.getElementById('inner').innerHTML="keypress on div";
}
function onKeypressDoc()
{
document.getElementById('inner').innerHTML="keypress on doc";
}
//install event handlers
document.getElementById('inner').addEventListener("click", onClick, false);
document.getElementById('inner').addEventListener("keypress", onKeypressDiv, false);
document.addEventListener("keypress", onKeypressDoc, false);
</script>
</body>
</html>
On clicking the inner DIV I try to give it focus, but subsequent keyboard events are always picked up at the document level, not my DIV level event listener.
Do I simply need to implement an application-specific notion of keyboard focus?
I should add I only need this to work in Firefox.
Javascript Solutions
Solution 1 - Javascript
Sorted - I added tabindex attribute to the target DIV, which causes it to pick up keyboard events, for example
<div id="inner" tabindex="0">
this div can now have focus and receive keyboard events
</div>
Information gleaned from http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/WD-WCAG20-TECHS/SCR29.html
Solution 2 - Javascript
Paul's answer works fine, but you could also use contentEditable, like this...
document.getElementById('inner').contentEditable=true;
document.getElementById('inner').focus();
Might be preferable in some cases.