iOS/WebKit: touchmove/touchstart not working on input & textarea - ios

Question

I have an IOS Web App that can't be scrolled. For that reason I want to deactivate scrolling. To do this, I use an element's ontouchmove attribute and have it call a function that uses element.preventDefault.
However, I am unable to detect any touching event when it starts on a textarea or input element, even when the element is disabled! I have also tried binding the touchmove or touchstart event to these elements via JavaScript's addEventlistener, without success!
And here's my JavaScript:
function onBodyLoad() {
document.addEventListener( "touchstart", doNotScroll, true );
document.addEventListener( "touchmove", doNotScroll, true );
}
function doNotScroll( event ) {
event.preventDefault();
event.stopPropagation();
}
Thanks for any help!

Answer 1

I think I've found a great workaround for this issue using the "pointer-events" CSS property:
function setTextareaPointerEvents(value) {
var nodes = document.getElementsByTagName('textarea');
for(var i = 0; i < nodes.length; i++) {
nodes[i].style.pointerEvents = value;
}
}
document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function() {
setTextareaPointerEvents('none');
});
document.addEventListener('touchstart', function() {
setTextareaPointerEvents('auto');
});
document.addEventListener('touchmove', function(e) {
e.preventDefault();
setTextareaPointerEvents('none');
});
document.addEventListener('touchend', function() {
setTimeout(function() {
setTextareaPointerEvents('none');
}, 0);
});
This will make Mobile Safari on iOS (others not tested so far) ignore the textareas for scrolling but allows to set focus etc. as usual.

Answer 2

the Thomas Bachem answer is the one!
I rewrote it in jQuery. Just add a class scrollFix to your desired inputs and you are ready to go. Or attach the event handlers to all inputs and textareas using $('input, textarea').
Now when you touch and scroll on an input on iOS 8+, the input get all its pointer-events disabled (including the problematic behavior). Those pointer-events are enabled when we detect a simple touch.
$('.scrollFix').css("pointer-events","none");
$('body').on('touchstart', function(e) {
$('.scrollFix').css("pointer-events","auto");
});
$('body').on('touchmove', function(e) {
$('.scrollFix').css("pointer-events","none");
});
$('body').on('touchend', function(e) {
setTimeout(function() {
$('.scrollFix').css("pointer-events", "none");
},0);
});