Mac Catalyst WKWebView keyDown never trigger (no more keyboard events)

Question

ShaddamIV OP

Created Dec ’22

Replies 8

Boosts 5

Views 2k

Participants 8

Everything was working fine for 4 years.

But since Ventura, when the WKWebView is in focus, the keyDown event are not happening. Not only they don't fire inside of web page input box, but they won't register in the app either.

As long as a WKWebView is in focus, the keyboard events won't work. The app does not receive the key events, and the web page will not receive the js events keyDown and friends. This is particularly painful with auto complete input box.

Test with an empty project with only a WKWebView with this page https://www.toptal.com/developers/keycode/for/d

It does work fine on iPhone and iPad.

Message to Apple : You force us to use your Safari engine, yet it is always broken. Don't wait for 8 months to fix it this time, we would be tempted to go full web and skip native app with all the store certification problems.

Boost

Answer 1

sebastienpouliot OP

Jan ’23

@ShaddamIV did you test your app under both x86_64 and arm64 macOS ?

I have something quite similar but it works on x86_64 (and on arm64 when using Rosetta with a x86_64 binary). However this is working on other, simpler, application so I'm not yet sure this is the same issue as you have.

0

Answer 2

ShaddamIV OP

Feb ’23

I found another problem that is caused by the lack on onKeyDown working on Mac Intel.

Tab key is not working, so you can't jump to next input box by pressing Tab key.

You can test with this page. Put the cursor in the first input box and press tab. It works everywhere on the planet, but it won't work on a WKWebview on a MacOS Ventura running on Intel. https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_forms.asp

1

Answer 3

mhrastegari OP

Jul ’23

Any updates on this? :"(

0

Answer 4

david.ribeaux OP

Jul ’23

Is there a workaround in the meantime? I have an app with many input fields. Working without TAB is an imposition. No key events are recognised.

2

Answer 5

exotexot OP

Sep ’23

Same issue. This is terrible. :(

1

Answer 6

GLENZ OP

Sep ’23

Same problem with catalyst! webview!!! does not detect keydown in js!

1

Answer 7

scottkuhl OP

Feb ’24

MacOS Catalyst apps using a web view are useless without this.

2

Answer 8

AHDev OP

1w

Any updates to this? still experiencing this issue, The only way I can tab through the page is by holding option+tab which is strange and not what I want, doesn't seem like theres a whole lot of information out there on this.

0