# Titanium.UI.TextArea

The attributed hint text by the text area. If set, avoid setting common attributes in text area, such as hintText, color and font, as unexpected behaviors may result.

This has no effect when used with hintType Ti.UI.HINT_TYPE_ANIMATED.

Prior to Release 3.6.0, assign this property an object from the <Titanium.UI.iOS.AttributedString> class.

Since Appcelerator CLI 4.1.0 (Alloy 1.7.0), for Alloy, you can use an <AttributedHintText> element inside a <TextField> element and set the text property as node text:

<Alloy>
  <Window>
      <TextField>
        <AttributedHintText>
            Alloy is great!
        </AttributedHintText>
      </TextField>
  </Window>
</Alloy>

Then set attributes in the TSS file:

"AttributedString" : {
  attributes: [
    {
      type: Ti.UI.ATTRIBUTE_FOREGROUND_COLOR,
      value: 'red',
      range: [0, 5]
    },
    {
      type: Ti.UI.ATTRIBUTE_UNDERLINES_STYLE,
      value: Ti.UI.ATTRIBUTE_UNDERLINE_STYLE_SINGLE,
      range: [9, 5]
    }
  ]
}

The underlying attributed string drawn by the textArea. If set, avoid setting common attributes in textArea, such as value, color and font, as unexpected behaviors may result.

Prior to Release 3.6.0, assign this property an object from the <Titanium.UI.iOS.AttributedString> class.

Since Appcelerator CLI 4.1.0 (Alloy 1.7.0), for Alloy, you can use an <AttributedString> element inside a <TextArea> element and set the text property as node text:

<Alloy>
  <Window>
      <TextArea>
        <AttributedString>
            Alloy is great!
        </AttributedString>
      </TextArea>
  </Window>
</Alloy>

Then set attributes in the TSS file:

"AttributedString" : {
  attributes: [
    {
      type: Ti.UI.ATTRIBUTE_FOREGROUND_COLOR,
      value: 'red',
      range: [0, 5]
    },
    {
      type: Ti.UI.ATTRIBUTE_UNDERLINES_STYLE,
      value: Ti.UI.ATTRIBUTE_UNDERLINE_STYLE_SINGLE,
      range: [9, 5]
    }
  ]
}

Set to true to enable automatic spelling correction. On iOS 9+, this can be used to disable QuickType suggestions.

If this property is not explicitly defined, it behaves as though it were set to true.

On Android and iOS, the returned default value is undefined, but behave as if the value is true.

This sets the hint or content type to aid the autofill feature of iOS and Android to function.

iOS supports an additional autolink type, AUTOLINK_CALENDAR.

Multiple autolink values can be combined with a bitwise OR. For example:

textArea.autoLink = Ti.UI.AUTOLINK_MAP_ADDRESSES|Ti.UI.AUTOLINK_PHONE_NUMBERS;

Prior to Release 3.0, this field used platform-specific constants. These are now deprecated in favor of the AUTOLINK constants.

On Android, the LINKIFY legacy constants are defined in Titanium.UI.Android.

On iOS, the AUTODETECT legacy constants are defined in Titanium.UI.iOS.

For information about color values, see the "Colors" section of Titanium.UI.

When set false, the "copy" and "cut" options will not appear in the context menu. The Command+C and Command+X keyboard shortcuts will be ignored as well.

If true, the return key is disabled when this text area is empty, and automatically enabled as soon as the user types any text in the area.

Switch between a fullscreen keyboard in landscape mode (default) or a non-fullscreen keyboard which will leave some space to display UI elements.

When the text is specified using an attributed string and the text has an attribute of type ATTRIBUTE_LINK, this property controls if the system should handle that link automatically.

Hint text is hidden when the user enters text into this text area.

Use the backslash and letter n line feed character combination, ie \n, to force a new line.

Use unicode characters, such as those included in (but not limited to) the Unicode List of Useful Symbols section of wikipedia, to insert special characters and symbols.

Hint text color in Android is determined by the theme of the application. By default, a Titanium app uses a Dark theme. When you create the background to be white, the hint text color would also be white, hence not visible to the user. To change this, you can edit the "tiapp.xml" file with another theme. Example as follows:

<android xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <manifest>
        <application android:theme="@style/Theme.MaterialComponents.Light.Bridge"/>
    </manifest>
</android>

Another way to change the hint text color is to use this property and specify a color.

This has no effect when used with hintType Ti.UI.HINT_TYPE_ANIMATED. Instead a theme must be used that defines the android:textColorHint attribute.

Setting this to HINT_TYPE_ANIMATED will use the animated TextInputLayout on Android.

As of Release 2.0, because iOS disallows a view (including toolbar buttons) to be in two places at once, developers desiring textAreas or Titanium.UI.TextField to share a toolbar can instead use a single Titanium.UI.Toolbar instead of having arrays sharing toolbar buttons.

For information about color values, see the "Colors" section of Titanium.UI.

When asking for a specific kind of user input, such as a phone number or email address, you should always specify the appropriate keyboard type.

Sets the height of the text area by line height. Set to -1 to respect the view's height property instead.

Any attempt to input text beyond this length (including pasting a string larger than maxLength) will not edit the field's contents. A value of -1 indicates unlimited length.

Sets the maximum of lines that the field will be extended to when pressing Return.

The scroll-to-top gesture is a tap on the status bar; The default value of this property is true. This gesture works when you have a single visible text area. If there are multiple table views, web views, text areas, and/or scroll views visible, you will need to disable (set to false) on the above views you DON'T want this behaviour on. The remaining view will then respond to scroll-to-top gesture.

This property is useful to track the current cursor position of the text area. On iOS this property can be used in lieu of the selected event.

This method will return null on android and undefined on iOS if the view has not yet been attached to the window.

Use the backslash and letter n line feed character combination, ie \n, to force a new line.

Use unicode characters, such as those included in (but not limited to) the Unicode List of Useful Symbols section of wikipedia, to insert special characters and symbols.