Disable Android browser's input overlays?

Question

I've got a web page with some text inputs. The Android browser (at least on Android 2.3.4 which is all I've got now) seems to overlay its own control over the input on the page on focus.

The problem is that the overlaid control is a white rectangle and it looks ugly. Is there a way to disable it, or style it somehow?

UPDATE:

Here is an example from the Android emulator:

The rounded corners and the background are lost. On the actual device, I don't even see a border around the control.

I should probably mention that I'm using jQuery Mobile. My test device is an HTC Evo 4G.

Related questions:

Input has different style on focus

Input-Elements in WebViews always have the same style if highlighted on HTC Devices

Answer 1

Finally, I solved this problem for Android 2.3 devices.

It is not possible to really remove the overlay, but it is possible to move the overlay outside the viewport.

The overlay tries to position itself to the same position as the input field. It copies the width and the position offset which you assign with

position:relative

and

top:-10000px

But the overlay does not copy the position offsets which are assigned through

-webkit-transform: translate3d()

This causes several issues with JS libraries like iScroll.

But this also helps us to hide the overlay:

input[type="password"], input[type="text"]{
  position:relative;
  top:-10000px;
  -webkit-transform: translate3d(0, 10000px, 0);
}

You place the input field outside the viewport. Overlay positions itself beside it. Now you use translate3d() for moving it to the old position.

We use this solution already in our mobile web framework "qooxdoo Mobile": http://demo.qooxdoo.org/devel/mobileshowcase/index.html#%2Fform

Answer 2

Following code will remove tap highlight - [Android 4.0.3]

input{
   -webkit-user-modify: read-write-plaintext-only;
   -webkit-tap-highlight-color:#3072af;
}

Answer 3

Not sure this is a working solution and answer, but my inputs started playing along on Android after commenting out these, which all created havoc on my Android (HTC2.3) text inputs and selects

/* really bad */
-webkit-backface-visibility: hidden; 

/* your normal bad */
-webkit-transform: rotateY(0deg); 
-moz-transform: rotateY(0deg); 
transform: rotateY(0deg);

If you want to style default inputs, I'm using these:

/* native placeholder styling */    
::-webkit-input-placeholder {
    color:#555555;  
    }
:-moz-placeholder {
    color:#555555;  
    }   
.inField label {
    color:#555555;
    cursor: text;   
} 

After commenting out the first webkits, Android is working ok for me. I'm overriding plenty of other stuff, too though.

Also check out the screenshot below:

What I did with my inputs is create a listview, put all my inputs into list items and strip all input-JQM-CSS. This should give you a transparent input sitting on top of a listview item, which I think looks really good. You can also add labels to the inputs, my example is set up to work with the inField label plugin, so you have all these classes on board already, too.

The screenshot is from my Android HTC 2.3.5 and shows an input type="search". It's a listview search filter, which I stripped of most JQM-css. I have removed it from the listview further down, placed it into my form-list, added a label (can't see if active) and stripped all CSS, including icons.

Here is an example of how I'm doing my list-forms:

 <ul data-role="listview" data-inset="true" class="inputList">
    <li data-role="fieldcontain" data-icon="false" class="inField ui-btn ui-corner-top" data-theme="c">
        <div class="ui-btn-inner" aria-hidden="true"><div class="ui-btn-text">
        <label for="item">item</label>
        <input type="text" name="item" id="item" />
        </div></div>
     </li>
     <li data-role="fieldcontain" data-icon="false" class="inField ui-btn ui-corner-bottom" data-theme="c">
        <div class="ui-btn-inner" aria-hidden="true"><div class="ui-btn-text">
        <label for="item2">item2</label>
        <input type="text" name="item2" id="item2" />
        </div></div>
     </li>
  </ul> 

CSS:

.inputList li div.ui-btn-inner {
    background: none;
    border-bottom-width: 0px;
    border-left-width: 0px;
    border-right-width: 0px;
    }
 .inputList label {
    margin: 3px 0 0 !important;
    }
 // styling of text inputs! 
 .inputList input.ui-input-text, .inputList textarea.ui-input-text {
    width: 93%; 
    margin-left: 1%;
    padding: 0.6em 0;   
    text-indent: 80px; /* hard-coded - doesn't work on Android */
    border-width: 0px;
    background: transparent;    
    -moz-box-shadow: none; 
    -webkit-box-shadow: none; 
    box-shadow: none;   
    -moz-border-radius:0px; 
    -webkit-border-radius: 0px; 
    border-radius: 0px;
    }
.inputList .ui-li-divider:not(.input-divider), .inputList .ui-li-static, .inputList .ui-li-has-alt, .inputList .ui-link-inherit, .inputList .ui-btn-icon-notext .ui-btn-inner {
    padding: 0px !important;    
    }
// labels, from inField label plugin, but not active
.inField { 
    position:relative 
    }
.inField label { 
    line-height: 2.25em;
    vertical-align: middle;
    position:absolute; 
    left:8pt;
    width: inherit !important;  
    }

I hope this is all CSS. If you are trying to set this up and it looks crummy, let me know.

Working like this looks very nice on my HTC 2.3.4 My CSS still needs some polishing. I need to decrease the inputs width and align: center, so the borders of the below list item stay visible.

Other than that this would be a nice solution to crummy Android inputs. Just strip all JQM-CSS and put a listview-li behind.

Answer 4

Here is my code:

input {
    -webkit-user-modify: read-write-plaintext-only;
    -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);
}

Answer 5

I'm just taking a guess here, and you've probably already tried, but

-webkit-appearance: none;

may do the trick. I've not even got an android device, but on iphone that sorts out most input related styling problems as it strips out the default browser applied styling completely. Worth a shot anyway!

Answer 6

-webkit-user-modify: read-write-plaintext-only;

-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(0,0,0,0); outline-style: none;

This will working fine in Android 4.0 but when you use this code for numeric Input field doesn't support bcoz of read-write-plaintext-only, i got this problem, please anyone suggest.

Answer 7

@czuendorf, May 13 at 13:53: Worked for me too (also Android 4.0).

However... if you use an input with type="number" then the numeric keyboard does not pop-up anymore when you enter the field, but the regular keyboard is shown instead.

If you remove -webkit-user-modify, then the right keyboard is shown again, but the input element is shown with a border while it is being edited. In my case the input overlay messed up the layout (moved some content down and right), but this does not happen anymore with this new css code.

Answer 8

I confirm the macnerd analysis of the czuendorf patch. These behaviors vary widely from one android version to another. I tested it on a real Htc device with android 4.0.3 and the outline disappeared (great!) but it opens some serious keyboard issues (I see that the single keypress is not shown in the field, and other strange behaviors...). In the emulator no keyboard issue occur. I've not found any solution for the real device. It's a shame!