Drop down lists and combo boxes working incorrectly on iPad

[DamienParticipant]

Whilst testing I’ve noticed a strange behaviour on the iPad with drop down lists and combo boxes. When you select an item from a drop down list the input field directly under the item that is selected will automatically receive the focus. When filling in forms this makes it very difficult as when the other field receives the focus the on-screen keyboard activates.

Android does not do this and neither do Chrome or Internet Explorer on Windows 8.

Here is a link to an example:

http://takeabyte.co.uk/incontact/public/jqxtest.html

If you open it on an iPad and select an item that is over the next input box down. The item will be selected but then the input box will receive the focus. Likewise if you select an item that is over the select input or the second text input then they receive the focus after the listbox has closed.

What should happen is that the listbox should close and the focus should stay with the dropdownlist – this is how it works on all other other platforms including Android.

I have tried your technical support but Peter says ‘you do not have API for controlling the focus or preventing HTML Elements from getting focus’. Clearly this is a bug as it does not happen on any other platforms and a standard select control that it is meant to replace does not do it either.

Perhaps Dimitar can look at it as he has come up with some very clever solutions in the past,

Thanks

Damien Bhanji
Take A Byte Limited.

[Peter StoevKeymaster]

Hi Damien,

As I wrote, we do not have API for controlling/preventing the focus of widgets and HTML Elements. We will test again and if we find that to be an issue on our side, we will do our best to resolve it for a future version of jQWidgets.

Best Regards,
Peter Stoev

jQWidgets Team
http://www.jqwidgets.com

[DamienParticipant]

Hi Peter,

Thanks very much, I do appreciate it. If it’s any help I’ve discovered that it does do it on Android devices too (Samsung Galaxy), but not on older iPhones and not on any desktop browsers. Very puzzling…

Damien

[Peter StoevKeymaster]

Hi Damien,

It should not be puzzling. When you tap on item, the DropDown is closed and the element under it gets the focus due to the device’s browser delay.

Best Regards,
Peter Stoev

jQWidgets Team
http://www.jqwidgets.com

[DamienParticipant]

Hi Peter,

It is very puzzling. The older touch devices do not have the problem, only the newer ones, or ones that are being updated.

I’ve been looking into the internal structure of the JQWidget DropdownList and Combobox and discovered a masking DIV that is there behind the listbox in order to stop touch events getting through to controls below. So clearly it is a design goal of the JQWigets programmers to prevent these events from getting through to the underlying controls.

On the older iPhones it does the job nicely, I’ve placed a trap on it to see it intercepting the touch event and preventing it from getting through to the controls underneath. On the IOS 7xx and Android versions the same trap does not work, it is removed too quickly and the touch events are able to get through to the underlying controls.

This makes traversing a form of JQWidgets controls very cumbersome as the on-screen keyboard keeps activating unnecessarily and re-flowing the page. My own users are saying this after the last update where I replaced many of the standard HTML controls with JQWidgets equivalents. If I revert back to the HTML select elements the problem does not occur.

This is why I say it is puzzling. Puzzling that it is a design goal of the JQWidgets programmers to prevent these touch events from getting to any underlying controls but at the same time not prepared to resolve the problem for the most up to date browsers.

Regards

Damien

[Peter StoevKeymaster]

Hi Damien,

We cannot provide a workaround for that behavior. I think I wrote that in the e-mail, too. We will investigate and debug. If we find the problem, we will fix it. Unfortunately, I or someone else from our Team would not be able to provide any additional information at the moment.

Best Regards,
Peter Stoev

jQWidgets Team
http://www.jqwidgets.com

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