Is it possible to disable textarea's multiline option?

Question

Of course, I can use standard html text box, but I need text area for some reason.

So, is it possible to disable textarea's multiline option?

Deltadeltaic

#5424501 – Glamorize

Answer 1

You can set the size of your textarea using the cols and rows attributes and make it non-resizable in CSS but you can't prevent the user from adding more than one line. Even if the area is just too small, a scrollbar will appear and let them write as many lines as they want.

If you really need to get just one line, I suggest setting the rows attribute to 1 and checking if the input has a single line with Javascript.

In html:

<textarea name="a"  cols="5" rows="1" ></textarea>

In CSS:

textarea{
    resize: none; 
    #You can use resize: horizontal if you just want to disable vertical resize
}

Still, I'd suggest using an <input type="text" ... /> Why do you want to avoid it?

Mulkey

This might not be the OP's use case, but I've just run into this issue when building a basic rich single-line input (allows for styling of certain words or word groups within the textbox). To achieve this, I've overlaid a styled div with pointer-events:none;. To keep it in sync with the input on scroll (when the user types beyond the edge), you need to listen for a scroll event. Unfortunately, only a textarea will fire one (input refuses to). So in this case, input must be avoided. – Arhna

@NicolaeSurdu how so? The fiddle you linked to seems to work exactly the way I described. At least in Chrome and Edge. – Mulkey

My bad. Didn't see that you mentioned the user is still able to create a new line in the textarea. Me, and I think also the OP, was looking for a solution to prevent also that. – Houck

@NicolaeSurdu the solution for that is type="text" :) – Mulkey

@Mulkey actually, the solution is JS :) – Houck

Answer 2

You can keep all the text on a single line by settings rows="1" on the <textarea>, like the other answers have suggested, and then applying the following CSS to the text area:

resize: none;
white-space: nowrap;
overflow-x: scroll;

This CSS will prevent the single row from wrapping, while still making the keeping the whole line visible by providing a scroll bar to navigate any text that overflows the visible area.

Essonite

Warning: Even while having white-space: nowrap will make it display everything on 1 line (rows="1" or otherwise), it still takes all characters user might enter in the textbox including carriage returns that are not being displayed. – Briar

Answer 3

Yes, it is possible using input event to remove all new-line characters every time a user inputs something.

<textarea oninput="this.value = this.value.replace(/\n/g,'')"></textarea>

Or in a more civilized way:

html

<textarea id="ta"></textarea>

js

document.getElementById('ta').addEventListener('input', function(e){
    this.value = this.value.replace(/\n/g,'')
});

Demo on JSFiddle

Spatz

Only solution in the list that worked for me – Smudge

For replacing the part after the first linefeed, you can do oninput="this.value=this.value.replace(/\n[\s\S]*/,'');update()", where [\s\S] is like . but it matches newlines. The //s modifier also makes dot match newlines, but it was only added in ES2018. – Pantisocracy

do I need to consider \r\n or is new lines in browsers always \n? – Blowout

@Blowout \r\n should not appear with a standard keyboard typing, unless someone's copy-paste it. Anyway, it is a good practice to get rid of the \r as well. Integrating \r in Windows, was one of Microsoft's biggest mistakes, to see until these days a lot of suffering in IT field. – Spatz

Answer 4

You can use wrap="off" attribute in textarea to be displayed in a single line.

<textarea wrap="off"></textarea>

Reconciliatory

Answer 5

Use this pure JS code and it will not allow user to enter multiple lines in textarea

var textArea = document.getElementsByTagName("textarea")[0];//your desired TextArea
textArea.onkeydown = function (e) {
    if (e.keyCode == 13) { e.preventDefault(); }
};

NOTE: This method will not work if user copies a multi line text and pastes it in the TextArea.

Hovis

Answer 6

Use rows=1 to display only 1 line. you can get further more information from this link

Biaxial

Main use of testarea is to have multiple line of data if you want single line then use textbox. – Biaxial

Answer 7

You can set the rows attribute to 1.

It is not possible to disable the multiline

Escarpment

Answer 8

The following jQuery snippet forces textarea to be displayed in a single line.

  $(document).ready(function(){
    $('textarea').each(function(){$(this).attr('rows', 1);});
  });

Gebelein