Character countdown like on twitter

Question

How can I make a \"remaining characters\" countdown like the one on Twitter with jQuery? And also limit the input to a textarea.

Answer 1

It's a suicide to use jQuery, Mootools or similar for such simple task ... unless you are already using them for something else.

Simple javascript function:

function limitTextCount(limitField_id, limitCount_id, limitNum)
{
    var limitField = document.getElementById(limitField_id);
    var limitCount = document.getElementById(limitCount_id);
    var fieldLEN = limitField.value.length;

    if (fieldLEN > limitNum)
    {
        limitField.value = limitField.value.substring(0, limitNum);
    }
    else
    {
        limitCount.innerHTML = (limitNum - fieldLEN) + ' charachter(s) to go.';
    }
}

The first parameter is id of the input/textarea. The second - id of the div to display characters left. The third is the limit itself.

And simple HTML:

<input type="text" value="" name="title" id="title" maxlength="100" onkeyup="limitTextCount('title', 'divcount', 100);" onkeydown="limitTextCount('title', 'divcount', 100);">
<br>
<div id="divcount">100 charachter(s) to go..</div>

Answer 2

use jquery

save this as jquery.textlimiter.js

(function($) {
    $.fn.extend( {
        limiter: function(limit, elem) {
            $(this).on("keyup focus", function() {
                setCount(this, elem);
            });
            function setCount(src, elem) {
                var chars = src.value.length;
                if (chars > limit) {
                    src.value = src.value.substr(0, limit);
                    chars = limit;
                }
                elem.html( limit - chars );
            }
            setCount($(this)[0], elem);
        }
    });
})(jQuery);

usage

<textarea id="text" maxlength="100" cols="50" rows="5" placeholder="Enter Text"></textarea>
    <div id="chars">100</div>
<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script src="path/to/jquery.textlimiter.js"></script>
<script>
$(document).ready( function() {
    var elem = $("#chars");
    $("#text").limiter(100, elem);
});
</script>

Answer 3

I added a simple pluralize function, cus nobody likes bad grammar.

function pluralize(count, word){
  if (count == 1 || count == -1){
    return String(count) + ' ' + word;
  }else{
    return String(count) + ' ' + word + 's';
  }
}

function updateCountdown() {
    // 140 is the max message length
    var remaining = 140 - jQuery('#micropost_content').val().length;
    jQuery('.countdown').text(pluralize(remaining,'character') + ' remaining');
}

...