Can you press tab in a textarea without changing focus while still typing?

Question

HTML:

<textarea id="text"></textarea>

JavaScript:

document.querySelector('#text').addEventListener('keydown', e => {
  if (e.keyCode == 9) e.preventDefault();
});

Are you able to still write a tab without unfocusing the textarea?

Answer 1

Add spaces to the end when tab is hit:

document.querySelector('#text').addEventListener('keydown', e => {
    if (e.keyCode == 9) {
        e.preventDefault();
        document.querySelector('#text').value += "    ";
    }
});

---

Edit: Worked on inserting spaces and I think this works:

<textarea id="text"></textarea>

document.querySelector('#text').addEventListener('keydown', e => {
    if (e.keyCode == 9) {
        e.preventDefault();

        var ele = document.querySelector('#text');
        var caretPos = ele.selectionStart;
        var textAreaTxt = ele.value;
        var txtToAdd = "    ";
        ele.value = textAreaTxt.substring(0, caretPos) 
                    + txtToAdd 
                    + textAreaTxt.substring(caretPos);
        ele.selectionStart = caretPos + 4;
        ele.selectionEnd = caretPos + 4;
    }
});

With help from https://stackoverflow.com/a/15977052/1171702 and a general search for js add spaces at cursor position.