Text area...simple question

Anon

How can I limit the space available for a user to input text? I want the user to enter a brief description on something but I don't want a huge write-up...how can I limit their text area to a desired size?

Marcel.

Anon

Try this one:
<input type="text" name="textfield" maxlength="25">

This would limit the amount of characters in the field to 25 characters. Just change the value to whatever you need.

Troy

Anon

This limits the size of the box in the form, it does not limit the length of what you can enter.

There is a clever bit of javascript that is bound to be in the first
javascript tutorial thing you come accross.
It works on the onchange event, and checks the length of the string in the field.
If the string is longer than what you want, it chops off the rest.

Ofcourse that only works with javascript enabled....

Anon

When you process the submitted form, you can always truncate the input.

$maxlength=$50;
$intext = substr($intext,0,$maxlength);

That will "brute-force" limit the size of any text.

Or, you could alternatively just check the length of the input and if it's too long, send the user back to the input form with a message explaining the problem.

Cheers,

Jack

Anon

Hmmm...

This code works fine for me:

This will only allow you to type 3 characters into the input field. You might be thinking of size="3", this will change the width size of the text field to 3 but you can still type as many characters as you want.

Troy

Anon

Thanks for all the response people. Vincent I have seen this code but felt there had to be a more elegant way. Truncating user input is not "nice", leaves the user frustrated and hating to have to shorten their "schpeel".

I think Troy has the answer with "maxlength=20"! Thanks Troy....you win a million dollars. Vincent pay the man! hehehehe....

Seriously, thanks all, much appreciated.

Marcel.

Anon

Works for type=text. Doesn't work for textarea, where Vincent's solution would be the option.

Anon

OK...Troy give Vincent back that million dollars!

Marcel.

Anon

Well...couldn't I just take the var $text, which holds the inputted text, test it and direct the user accoerdingly? Again not as elegant as simply only allowing limited input but it's better than using javascript. 🙂

Marcel.

Anon

Jack seems to have already offered this solution, sorry Jack. The only problem I see with this is the need to redirect the user if too long. You know users....they will try once maybe twice and send you hate mail thereafter!

Is there perhaps not a way to dynamically check user input and just keep erasing it so they "see", the error of their ways? Damn there must be a better way...i hate the java script solution too! Why don't they have a textarea with a max_size option to it? Someone?

Marcel.

Anon

Here's what I would suggest: Do the redirection thing if the input text is too long (basically reject the submission and ask the user to trim it). But add the Javascript that Vincent suggested as a non-essential enhancement. Pop up a nag note if the note is near the limit, saving a Javascript-enhanced user the cycle time of submit/reject.

Anon

Yeah my thoughts exactly....except I found a cool java-script that allows the user to input the text and when the end is hit, it resets itself and the user is overwriting their own text! Not a bad solution, I think I'll further modify it though so as it just sits there and does not reset to the beginning, that way it won't overwrite a overzealous typist's ranting! It also displays a text box with the text count in it...nice touch I'd say.

Well, thanks for your help...much appreciated.

Marcel.