jQuery get textarea text

Question

Recently I have started playing with jQuery, and have been following a couple of tutorials. Now I feel slightly competent with using it (it's pretty easy), and I thought it would be cool if I were able to make a 'console' on my webpage (as in, you press the ` key like you do in FPS games, etc.), and then have it Ajax itself back to the server in-order to do stuff.

I originally thought the best way would be to just get the text inside the textarea, and then split it, or should I use the keyup event, convert the keycode returned to an ASCII character, append the character to a string and send the string to the server (then empty the string).

I couldn't find any information on getting text from a textarea, all I got was keyup information. Also, how can I convert the keycode returned to an ASCII character?

Eran_Galperin_10585 · Answer

Why would you want to convert key strokes to text? Add a button that sends the text inside the textarea to the server when clicked. You can get the text using the value attribute as the poster before has pointed out, or using jQuery's API:

$('input#mybutton').click(function() {
    var text = $('textarea#mytextarea').val();
    //send to server and process response
});

sblundy_4893 · Answer

Normally, it's the value property

testArea.value

Or is there something I'm missing in what you need?

RodgerB_20900 · Answer

I have figured out that I can convert the keyCode of the event to a character by using the following function:

var char = String.fromCharCode(v_code);

From there I would then append the character to a string, and when the enter key is pressed send the string to the server. I'm sorry if my question seemed somewhat cryptic, and the title meaning something almost completely off-topic, it's early in the morning and I haven't had breakfast yet ;).

Thanks for all your help guys.

user_889030 · Answer

you can get textarea data by name and id

// by name

let text_area_data = $('textarea[name="comment"]').val();

// by id

let text_area_data = $('textarea#comment').val();

user_6263091 · Answer

the best way: $('#myTextBox').val('new value').trim();

user_860099 · Answer

Read textarea value and code-char conversion:

function keys(e) {
  msg.innerHTML = `last key: ${String.fromCharCode(e.keyCode)}`
  
  if(e.key == 'Enter') {
    console.log('send: ', mycon.value);
    mycon.value='';
    e.preventDefault();
  }
}

Push enter to 'send'

And below nice Quake like console on div-s only :)

document.addEventListener('keyup', keys);

let conShow = false

function keys(e) {
  if (e.code == 'Backquote') {
    conShow = !conShow;
    mycon.classList.toggle("showcon");
  } else {
    if (conShow) {
      if (e.code == "Enter") {
        conTextOld.innerHTML+= '
' + conText.innerHTML;
        let command=conText.innerHTML.replace(/ /g,' ');
        conText.innerHTML='';
        console.log('Send to server:', command); 
      } 
      else if (e.code == "Backspace") {
        conText.innerHTML = conText.innerText.slice(0, -1);
      } else if (e.code == "Space") {
        conText.innerHTML = conText.innerText + ' '
      } else {
        conText.innerHTML = conText.innerText + e.key;
      }

    }
  }
}

body {
  margin: 0
}

.con {
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
  justify-content: flex-end;
  align-items: flex-start;
  width: 100%;
  height: 90px;
  background: rgba(255, 0, 0, 0.4);
  position: fixed;
  top: -90px;
  transition: top 0.5s ease-out 0.2s;
  font-family: monospace;
}

.showcon {
  top: 0px;
}

.conTextOld {
  color: white;
}

.line {
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: row;
}

.conText{   color: yellow; }

.carret {
  height: 20px;
  width: 10px;
  background: red;
  margin-left: 1px;
}

.start { color: red; margin-right: 2px}

Click here and Press tilde ` (and Enter for "send")


  Hello!
  
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jQuery get textarea text

9 Answers