Question

I’ve searched and discovered that I can simulate a keypress event using jQuery, but my knowledge about jQuery is poor and I didn’t get how exactly.

So I have a Greasemonkey script which manages 2 different webpages in 2 tabs.
I’d like to simulate/auto-execute CtrlShiftTab to go back to the previous tab automatically, this way I could change tabs in Firefox.

The problem is that it’s not only a plain keypress, I need to simulate a Ctrl and Shift parts too.

I’ve added this to my script:

// @require        http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.2/jquery.min.js

and tried:

function testEvents(){
var press = jQuery.Event("keypress");
press.which = 9;
$("whatever").trigger(press.ctrlKey + press.shiftKey + press.which);

}

without success.

Some links I’ve seen:
Is it possible to simulate key press events programmatically?,
simulate jquery, and http://forum.jquery.com/topic/simulating-keypress-events

Answer 1

JavaScript cannot be used to trigger a default behavior by simulating “shortcut” key events.

Since jQuery is just a different way to write JavaScript code, the restriction also applies.
And, because Greasemonkey scripts are based on JavaScript, without extra functionality besides the GM_* methods, it is not possible to write a User script which switches tabs.