Submit search on ENTER not working in IE - xpages

Question

to perform a fulltext search users want to simply enter their query into a simple inputText. Then as soon as they hit ENTER the search itself should kick in.
Currently we tried to solve it like this:
the inputText is bound to a sessionScope variable myQuery
the input also has an OpenPage action bound to its onchange event
the page that is to be opened contains a viewPanel with a search filter bound to our sessionScope variable, as well as some more FT filtering fields.
This works fine in Firefox and Chrome but not in IE; obviously IE isn't recognizing the ENTER key as an onchange-trigger.
So I tried to record and analyze the keystrokes using the control's onkeyup event using something like
var q=sessionScope.get("myQuery");
return q.charCodeAt(q.length-1);
Works fine for all standard characters, but not for the ENTER key (where I would have expected to receive code 13).
I currently do have some kind of workaround using CSJS code in the control's onkeyup event as in:
if(event.keyCode===13){
var p=location.pathname.split("/");
p.pop();
location.replace(p.join("/") + "/search.xsp");
}
But this has some side effects which has some potential to make things more complicated, and it feels a bit like some hack. So I'd prefer to solve it using server side scripting.
Question is:
is there a way to capture an ENTER key stroke so that we can react to it?
or are we maybe on a completely wrong track here?

Answer 1

In IE the onchange event is not fired until the input loses focus: http://komlenic.com/231/internet-explorer-onchange-on-enter/
So you could use some CSJS to catch the ENTER press in IE, and drop focus from the input using .blur() method, which will in turn trigger the onchange event
A quick example I tried out that seems to work:
<xp:inputText id="inputText2" value="#{document1.text1}">
<xp:eventHandler event="onkeyup" submit="false">
<xp:this.script><![CDATA[
var kc = thisEvent.keyCode?thisEvent.keyCode:"";
if(kc != "" && kc == "13") {
var input = dojo.byId("#{id:inputText2}");
input.blur();
}]]>
</xp:this.script>
</xp:eventHandler>
<xp:eventHandler event="onchange" submit="true" refreshMode="complete">
<xp:this.action>
<xp:openPage name="/formInput.xsp"></xp:openPage>
</xp:this.action>
</xp:eventHandler>
</xp:inputText>