Skip to main content

Jquery Mobile Form - Text inputs

    In this post on "form text input's" styling and usage using Jquery Mobile we will cover various input types and textarea styling using JQM. We will also cover the various attributes that can be used with the input types. Text inputs and textareas are coded with standard HTML elements, then enhanced by Jquery Mobile to make them more attractive and useable on a mobile device.

    The text input elements are available in 2 flavors/sizes - regular and mini. Following is a standard HTML syntax for an input element.


    Adding a data attribute data-mini="true" to the input tag renders a smaller sized input element. Let's take a look at the code sample below to understand the working in a better way.

    Apart from the regular input type, to accept multi-line input, use the textarea element. The advantage of using textarea in Jquery Mobile is that, the framework auto grows the height of the textarea, avoiding the need for the content in the textarea to be scrolled internally. In the example below, you will see to implementations of textareas - one with label and textarea on 2 separate lines and the other with the label and textarea on the same line.



    In the code above, you will see 4 different implementations of the input element. The first one is a regular input of type text with the label and the textbox one below the other. The second implementation is exactly similar to the first implementation with the only difference of the added data attribute "data-mini="true"" which reduces the size (basically height) of the textbox.

    The third implementation gets the label and the textbox on the same line. This implementation is done using a div with data attribute data-role="fieldcontain" around the label and input tags. This div has to be within a form tag. Maintaining the HTML structure is very important when using JQuery Mobile framework.

    In the fourth implementation, we have used the HTML5 placeholder property and done away with the label completely. However, for the sake of accessibility, we have included the label tag with class="ui-hidden-accessible" so that the label is not displayed but is present in the HTML structure. This implementation is popularly used on mobile sites as this reduces the amount of scroll.

    To disable the input field just add the keyword "disabled" to the input tag and your input type would be disabled.

    A note on accessibility:
    For the sake of accessibility, jQuery Mobile requires that all form elements be paired with a meaningful label. To hide labels in a way that leaves them visible to assistive technologies — for example, when letting an element's placeholder attribute serve as a label — apply the helper class ui-hidden-accessible to the label itself. While the label will no longer be visible, it will be available to assisitive technologies such as screen readers.

    You can use the various input types supported in HTML5. The advantage of using the HTML5 input types is that keybords default to the particular input type are displayed by default. The following example demonstrates the various HTML5 input types that you can use. Try out the example on a mobile device and you will see for yourself the various keyboards that default the particular input type.



    The mobile browsers that do not support the new HTML5 input types will fall back to the default input type="text" and show the default alpha-numeric keyboard. Adding the images (screenshots) of default keyboards displayed for different input types on the Android and iOS devices, to this post would make the post really long and so I have included these images here.

    Hope this post has been informative to you and helps you use the various input types effectively in your next Jquery Mobile based application. Drop a comment to let me know what you feel about this post as well as the earlier series on Jquery Mobile listview. Share the post if is has helped you, so that maximum developers benefit from this one. Till next time, happy coding!

Comments

Recommended for You

Playing with the markers and info window bubbles...

    In the last few posts, we have seen some marker examples and some information window examples. Now, lets do something interesting combining these two things. Just writing that "This is an info window" in the information bubble is not very interesting! And I know this...Have gone through the same phase!     So, today we will do something interesting! We will display the latitude- longitude co-ordinates of the point that the user clicks on the map! Doing this is not at all complex! Copy paste the following code and you will see for yourself a map coming to life!     The output of the above code looks as seen in the result section above! If you have any queries regarding the above code please comment on the blog post or feel free to contact me at my mail ID .

ES6 101 - Class

Spatial Unlimited changes to The UI Dev After being hosted on blogger 😣 for the last 6 years 📆, this page has finally been moved to Github.io This means a few things for you, dear reader! You will be redirected to the new page shortly! ⏩ ⏩ ⏩ Once crapy HTML is now better looking Markdown ! 😍 😍 The entire blog is a Github repo ! 😍 😍 Spatial Unlimited is now The UI Dev 😍 😍

Tribute to Sachin Tendulkar

    Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar - The greatest batsman of this generation is playing his 200th test match starting today. This test match that is being played between India and West Indies at the "master blaster"'s home ground at the Wankhede Cricket Stadium in Mumbai is the final match that he will be playing. The legend of cricket, the little master, the master blaster, the GOD of Cricket retires after this test match at Wankhede.     A billion hearts are praying for the great Sachin Tendulkar and everybody is paying their tribute to this great ambassador of the game of Cricket. Sachin has borne the burden of the entire nation throughout his entire career and has been the hope for a million cricket fans in India. I still remember, when I was a kid, I used to turn off the television when Sachin would be dismissed, knowing for sure that the Indian cricket team would loose the match after his dismissal. It would not be wrong, if I were to say that every Indian ha...

Overlays - A complex example

    In the last post we have seen what an overlay is and we have also seen a small simple overlay example as well. Today's example is a bit complex as compared to the last one, but is not at all difficult. We will directly jump to the code instead of having any more descriptions and stuff. So, here's the code.     The output of the above code looks as seen in the result section above. You need to click on the map to place a marker on the map. You can place multiple markers on the map by clicking on the map multiple times. By clicking on the "Clear overlays" button all the markers on the map will disappear. By clicking on the "Show all overlays" button, all the cleared, but not deleted markers will reappear. Clicking on the "Delete overlays" buttons will remove all the markers permanently.     If you have any doubts or queries regarding the code please leave a comment or drop me a mail .

Form info window

         Today we will look at a Google Maps API v3 example to add a form in the information bubble! This is usually required when we wish to accept some data/information from the user! This data can be saved to a server in the form of an XML file or a database! The information can then be retrieved back at a later stage, when necessary!          In this example we will only look at form in the information bubble! The connectivity part with the server will be discussed in another post! So, today's code snippet is as seen below! <html> <head> <title> Google Maps API v3 - Adding marker and info window on Click and creating a form in the infowindow with the lat-lng information in it. </title> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://maps.google.com/maps/api/js?sensor=false"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> var map;    //When using ev...