Custom Input

A library helping you create custom input elements in the browser. Add mask and validation to input[text]! Originally included in angular-datetime.

Installation

Via npm:

npm install custom-input

var {InputMask, TextParser} = require("custom-input");

There is also a pre-built dist which can be used in the browser:

<!-- export cusomInput into global -->
<script src="https://unpkg.com/custom-input@0.3.1/dist/custom-input.js"></script>

var {InputMask, TextParser} = customInput;

The pre-built dist is compatible with IE 8, but you have to polyfill missing APIs by including @babel/polyfill.

Demo

A small example showing how it works: https://rawgit.com/eight04/custom-input/master/demo.html

API reference

This module exports following members:

• TextParser - a parser which can parse text into model value.
• InputMask - bind a parser with an input element and create a nice input mask.
• utils - a set of utilities used by the library.

TextParser

new TextParser({
  tokens: Array<Token>,
  value: any,
  copyValue: value => clonedValue
})
  => parser

Create a stateful parser which can convert a model value to a string and vise versa. The parser uses a series of Token to construct a template. For example, the IP address: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx can be represented with 7 tokens, which are Number{1,3}, String ".", Number{1,3}, String ".", Number{1,3}, String ".", Number{1,3}. The parser will try to parse text along the tokens, extract the value from text and store the value in the model.

• tokens is a list of Token.
• value is the initial model value.
• copyValue is a function which can clone the model.

parser.parse

parser.parse(text: String) => parser

Parse a string and store the value in the parser.

This method returns the parser itself.

parser.setValue

parser.setValue(value, preserveEmpty? = false) => parser

Set a new model value and format text according to the new value.

If preserveEmpty is false, parser will the reset empty flag of all nodes.

This method returns the parser itself.

parser.getValue

parser.getValue() => value

Get the model value.

parser.getText

parser.getText() => text: String

Get formatted text.

parser.isEmpty

parser.isEmpty(text?: String) => Boolean

If text is supplied, parse the text without saving data and check if nodes contains empty node.

If some nodes are set, return false.

parser.isInit

parser.isInit() => Boolean

If some nodes are empty, return false.

Note: it is possible that parser.isEmpty() and parser.isInit() both returns true, which means all nodes are static.

parser.unset

parser.unset() => parser

Unset every node. Mark them as empty.

parser.getNodes

parser.getNodes(name?: String) => Array<Node>

Get a list of nodes. If name is provided, return the nodes having the same name.

parser events

• change - Emit when the model value is changed.

Token

A token is an object that contains special information for parsing. Each token may represents a static string, a number, or a choice list.

Static token

{
  type: "static",
  value: String
}

Set type to "static" to create a static token. It represent a static string.

value is the static string value.

Mutable token

Mutable tokens includes number token and select token. Some properties are shared with all types of mutable tokens:

{
  name?: String,
  placeholder: String,
  prior?: Number,
  extract: (modelValue) => nodeValue,
  restore: (modelValue, nodeValue) => void,
  add: (modelValue, increment) => void
}

• name property should be used with parser.getNodes(). There is no need to set a name if you are not going to retrieve the node.

• placeholder is a string, which is displayed when the node is empty e.g. after calling parser.unset().

• prior controls which node should be evaluated first. If there are two nodes whose value has been changed in the same time (via parser.parse), the node having higher prior will apply the change to the model first.

  Usually, it doesn't matter which node is evaluated first because the model value stores node values independently. But if you want to create a date string parser, you may have to decide the order carefully since each node will affect each other (e.g. the month may change when the day is changed/overflowed).

• extract, restore, and add are three hooks. The parser will call them when it want to perform corresponded operation to the model value.

  nodeValue is always a number. For number node, it is the node value. For select node, it is the index starting from 1.

  increment is an integer, can be negative.

number

{
  type: "number",
  minLength?: Number,
  maxLength?: Number,
  min?: Number,
  max?: Number
}

• minLength and maxLength controls how the number should be represented. The formatter will zero-pad the value when the length is shorter than minLength, and will trim the text when the length is longer than maxLength.

• min and max controls the bounding of the number. You may want to set min to 0 so it won't become negative. It also affect the input mask. If the node value hits the limit, up/down arrow keys will be disabled.

select

{
  type: "select",
  select: Array<option: String>
}

• select is a list of string that the text should match one of them.

  When converting text to model value, the parser will find the index of matched text, plus 1, then save it as node value (store it via the restore hook).

InputMask

InputMask is built with an <input> element and a TextParser. It handles most of the HTML stuff like listening to events, tracking selection range of the input element, etc.

After the mask is applied, users can only edit part of the text that is not defined as "static". Users can also press left/right arrow keys or tab to navigate between each mutable node. Use up/down arrow keys to increase/decrease node value. If it is a "select" node, it will act like a typeahead component. If the user tries to delete the node, it will be replaced by the placeholder.

new InputMask(element: Element, parser: TextParser, separators: String = "") => mask

• element is an object implementing Element interface.
• parser is a parser object.
• separators - apart from tab key, add other keys that can navigate through nodes.

mask.digest

mask.digest(node: Node | void, text: String, fixError?: Boolean = false)

The mask will try to parse the text. If an error occurs, try fixing it and parse it again.

• node - can be null

  If node is null, the mask will parse the text along with all nodes.

  If node is a node object, the mask will treat the text as the view value of the node.

• text is the text which should be parsed.

• fixError

  If fixError is true, the mask will try hardest to fix the error, even revert back the text to the previous state.

  If fixError is false, it will fix fatal errors, but leave NUMBER_TOOSHORT, LEADING_ZERO, etc.

mask events

• digest - emit when an digest error occurs. It may fire multiple times during one digest.

Element interface

The Element interface wraps native input element and exposes some methods similar to jQuery.

Element.on

Element.on(eventType: String, callback: (event) => void) => void

Wrap addEventListener. InputMask will listen to input event for text update, you might want to proxy it for cross browser compatibility.

InputMask uses following events:

• mousedown
• click
• focus
• input
• keydown
• keypress
• blur

Element.getSelection

Element.getSelection() => Range | void

Get the current selection from the input element. Return null if the element is not focused/selected.

Range has following shape:

{
  start: Number,
  end: Number
}

Element.setSelection

Element.setSelection(start: Number, end: Number) => void

Set selection on the input. You may need to check if the input is active or some browsers will try to focus the input element when the selection changed.

Element.val

Element.val() => String
Element.val(text: String) => void

Get or set the value of the input element. Like jQuery.

utils

A set of utilities.

utils.num2str

utils.num2str(number, minLength, maxLength) => String

Convert a number to a string. Pad the text with zero and trim the text if needed.

Changelog

• 0.4.0 (Jun 27, 2019)

  • Some changes to InputMask:

    • Breaking: deleting the entire node will reset the node now.
    • Breaking: prefer the node with lower index when finding the nearest node.

  • Bump dependencies.

• 0.3.1 (Sep 17, 2017)

  • Fix: use unpkg field in package.json.

• 0.3.0 (Sep 17, 2017)

  • Change: replace node's events with event-lite.

• 0.2.1 (Jul 24, 2017)

  • Add textParser arg to token.add and token.restore.
  • Add name attribute to Node.
  • Add name arg to TextParser.getNodes.

• 0.2.0 (Mar 9, 2017)

  • Allow using empty string as placeholder
  • The "change" event of TextParser now sends model value to listener.
  • Drop utils.Emitter. Use node's events.
  • Change the event name of InputMask: error -> digest.
  • Drop angular module, always use window.customInput.

• 0.1.0 (Dec 19, 2016)

  • First release.