Well, the trick is then processing those events. For `input` events it's fairly straightforward, put the character on the screen. But IMEs can also issue a composition event sequence, and it's not obvious how to handle those in a sensible way. If you wait for `compositionend`, then nothing will be visible until the composition is done. The usual thing is to overwrite each time with the current state from `compositionupdate` events, but in this case that requires moving the cursor backwards.

Perhaps the cursor could pause during a composition event?

For testing, you can easily generate composition events from a Mac keyboard, e.g.

1. Press option-e and observe an acute accent with an underline: ´ 2. Press a vowel and observe the lone accent transform into the accented character: é

This was going to be my suggestion as well. Put a proper input on the page but move it off screen or hide it with css.