Feature Request: Disable paging during text selection drag

[alecdhansen]

In paginated (non-scroll) mode, when selecting text by long-pressing and dragging toward the screen edge, the page automatically turns while the selection is being extended. This makes selecting text across the full width of a page unreliable.

Expected behavior:
Page should remain fixed while actively selecting text. Page turns should only occur via deliberate swipe gestures when no selection is in progress.

Actual behavior:
WKWebView's internal auto-scroll-to-reveal feature triggers page turns during the selection drag.

Investigation notes:
• Setting scrollView.isScrollEnabled = false works for blocking page turns after selection exists, but not during the selection drag
• WKWebView's selection auto-scroll bypasses scroll view properties, gesture recognizers, and KVO on contentOffset
• The selectionchange JS event fires, but the scroll has already occurred by then

Environment:
• iOS 17+
• Paginated reading mode (non-scroll)

Edit: I took a stab at this myself but was unsuccessful. Wondering if there's any extra ideas out there.

Screen.Recording.2026-01-20.at.12.09.23.PM.mov

[mickael-menu]

The auto-scroll is helpful to be able to highlight a sentence between two pages, but I understand it could be bothersome. An opt-in option to prevent this would be a useful addition.

Have you tried maybe disabling the scroll from the JS/CSS layer by applying a overflow: hidden; on html?

See https://github.com/readium/swift-toolkit/blob/develop/CONTRIBUTING.md#modifying-the-epub-navigators-javascript-layer

[volcy123]

@mickael-menu Hello Mickael. I suffer from the same problem, a solution would be great.Thank you for all your efforts.

[bogdanghervan]

I am also interested in this.

[Shumovskyi]

I have same problem

[mickael-menu]

We currently have no plans to fix this in the toolkit. If you're interested in this feature, please consider contributing back to the Readium toolkit.