Trigger a keypress/keydown/keyup event in JS/jQuery?

Question

What is the best way to simulate a user entering text in a text input box in JS and/or jQuery?

I don\'t want to actually put text in the input box,

Answer 1

You can achieve this with: EventTarget.dispatchEvent(event) and by passing in a new KeyboardEvent as the event.

For example: element.dispatchEvent(new KeyboardEvent('keypress', {'key': 'a'}))

Working example:

// get the element in question
const input = document.getElementsByTagName("input")[0];

// focus on the input element
input.focus();

// add event listeners to the input element
input.addEventListener('keypress', (event) => {
  console.log("You have pressed key: ", event.key);
});

input.addEventListener('keydown', (event) => {
  console.log(`key: ${event.key} has been pressed down`);
});

input.addEventListener('keyup', (event) => {
  console.log(`key: ${event.key} has been released`);
});

// dispatch keyboard events
input.dispatchEvent(new KeyboardEvent('keypress',  {'key':'h'}));
input.dispatchEvent(new KeyboardEvent('keydown',  {'key':'e'}));
input.dispatchEvent(new KeyboardEvent('keyup', {'key':'y'}));

MDN dispatchEvent

MDN KeyboardEvent