Question

I’m using the following css to reverse a textarea:

.reverse
{
  /* reverse the text */
  transform: scale(-1, 1);
  -webkit-transform: scale(-1, 1);
  -moz-transform: scale(-1, 1); 
  -o-transform: scale(-1, 1); 
  transform: scale(-1, 1);
}

This works great, except one thing: navigating through the text using the arrow keys is now backwards. I’d like to reverse the direction of the arrow keys so they work as expected. Here’s what I’ve tried:

$(document).ready(function() {

  // flag which indicates when the key event has been overridden
  var keyEventOverridden = false;

  // reverse the arrow keys for the reverse textbox
  $(".reverse").bind("keydown keyup", function(event) {

    // allow the default behavior if the key has already been overridden
    if (keyEventOverridden)
      return true;

    // get the keyCode
    var keyCode = event.keyCode || event.which;

    // create the replacement event
    var replacementEvent = $.Event(event.type);

    // trigger the right key if the left key was pressed down
    if (keyCode === 37)
    {
      replacementEvent.keyCode = 39;
      replacementEvent.which = 39;
    }
    // trigger the left key if the right key was pressed down
    else if (keyCode === 39)
    {
      replacementEvent.keyCode = 37;
      replacementEvent.which = 37;
    }
    else
    {
      // allow the default behavior
      return true;
    }

    // prevent the key event from being overridden again
    keyEventOverridden = true;

    // trigger the replacement event
    $(this).trigger(replacementEvent);

    // allow the key event to be overridden again
    keyEventOverridden = false;

    // prevent the default behavior
    return false;
  });
});

This script doesn’t work. Does anybody have any ideas why?

Answer 1

Well, Couldn’t get it to work the way you designed it originally (ie. by triggering a pseudo event), The browsers are just not allowing manipulated events.

I’ve done a workaround which maybe will be useful to you.

Check the demo: http://jsfiddle.net/pL3Yj/6/

The solution involves overriding the left/right arrows and moving the caret ourselves.