Remove form assistant from keyboard in iPhone standalone web app

Question

Is it possible to remove the form assistant from the iPhone popup keyboard in a standalone web app? I know the general consensus is that it's not possible in Mobile Safari, but a standalone app runs in a UIWebView, and functions differently in several ways (example), so I'm hoping this might be possible.

You can see it here right above the keyboard:

The Previous and Next buttons cycle between <form> inputs. But I have a single <input> element, so they are disabled. The Done button hides the keyboard, but since I have a height-flexible <ul> (that takes up the space between the keyboard and the <input>), and I have nothing else on this page, it serves no purpose.

On a tiny screen, and with almost half the screen taken up by the keyboard, the 44 pixels that make up this toolbar are a huge waste of space (an entire <li>'s worth).

Native iOS apps can remove it, so I know it's at least possible on the phone, I've just not discovered a way to do it in a web app. This is from the Facebook app and the page is very similar to mine:

I've tried using an <input> not wrapped in a <form> and also using a contenteditable <div>, but the results were the same. There are several custom -webkit- styles to control various aspects of the web app interface, but they are poorly documented, and a search turned up nothing on this.

Any way to remove the form assistant in a web app?

Indicative

Answer 1

All signs point to this not being possible, including several questions here.

Groth

Those are all related to mobile Safari not in standalone mode. This is for a chrome-less web app. I'm hoping there is more control, but perhaps not. – Indicative

Unfortunately I don't believe you get control over that with a chromeless app. Maybe someone will prove me wrong, though. – Groth

Any updated solutions for iOS 9.3.2? or is it still impossible? – Ilonailonka

Answer 2

If you app is a web app wrapped in a native Objective-C app this is possible by manipulating Keyboard views.

first, register to receive the keyboardDidShow notification:

[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:@selector(keyboardDidShow:) name:UIKeyboardDidShowNotification object:nil];

this will call the following method when keyboard shows up:

-(void)keyboardDidShow:(NSNotification*)notif
{
    NSArray *array = [[UIApplication sharedApplication] windows];
    
    for (UIWindow* wind in array) {
        for (UIView* currView in wind.subviews) {
            if ([[currView description] hasPrefix:@"<UIPeripheralHostView"]) {
                for (UIView* perView in currView.subviews) {
                    if ([[perView description] hasPrefix:@"<UIWebFormAccessory"]) {
                        [perView setHidden:YES];
                    }
                }
            
            }
        }
    }
}

this method goes over the views on screen looking for the form assistant and hiding it.

NOTE: Apple probably won't reject this, as i've seen it being used by Facebook etc, but this technique might break in upcoming iOS releases.

Daric

I am wrapping my app in a UIWebView for the final product, but have done everything "pre-wrap", so far. It looks like this may be the only solution to this problem though. – Indicative

Use UIKeyboardWillShowNotification instead of UIKeyboardDidShowNotification then you don't see the bar appear and then disappear again... – Misguidance

You should also do this [perView removeFromSuperview]; otherwise the hidden view will swallow any touches and not pass them to the underlying UIWebView – Misguidance

@Misguidance that's wrong. UIKeyboardWillShowNotification is not working since the views are not instantiated before the keyboard appears. – Verulamium

@Misguidance it doesn't work for me either. By the way, I found a better version of the solution that @HeziCohen proposed. It can be found here. That solution uses UIKeyboardWillShowNotification instead of UIKeyboardDidShowNotification (and it works) and, furthermore, gets rid of the gray horizontal line that remains after the form assistant bar is removed. – Purington

Answer 3

You can do a category of UIView and "override" the behaviour of addSubview: like the example below. Call the method "exachangeMethods" from your applicationDidFinishLaunching of your AppDelegate.

#import "UIView+util.h"
#import <objc/runtime.h>

@implementation UIView (util)

// Swaps our custom implementation with the default one
// +load is called when a class is loaded into the system
+ (void) exchangeMethods
{
    SEL origSel = @selector(addSubview:);
    
    SEL newSel = @selector(customAddSubview:);
    
    Class viewClass = [UIView class];
    
    Method origMethod = class_getInstanceMethod(viewClass, origSel);
    Method newMethod = class_getInstanceMethod(viewClass, newSel);
    method_exchangeImplementations(origMethod, newMethod);
}
- (void) customAddSubview:(UIView *)view{
    
    if( [[view description]rangeOfString:@"<UIWebFormAccessory"].location!=NSNotFound) {
        return;
    }
    
    // This line at runtime does not go into an infinite loop
    // because it will call the real method instead of ours.
    return [self customAddSubview:view];
    
}

@end

Inherent

Looks good, but I'm trying to do this in a web app, not native. – Indicative

Very interesting solution to try swizzling for this... I will give it a shot. – Imprisonment