After reading Temani Afif's clever solution involving the clipping mask, I wanted to share another approach that may be a bit less refined but still effective. While testing the issue in Firefox, I noticed that clicking outside the text area did not cause the first digit to reappear or reset the string as intended.
The culprit seemed to be the CSS attribute letter-spacing: 31px;, particularly how it affected the blinking caret in different browsers. While Chrome removed this styling upon losing focus, Firefox retained it, leading to the observed behavior.
My initial workaround involved manually triggering the blur event using JavaScript, which proved successful in Chrome:
<input type="text" id="number_text" maxlength="6" onkeyup="(function()
{
var x = document.getElementById('number_text');
let value = x.value
if (value.length >= 6){
x.blur()
return false
}
})();"
pattern="\d{6}" value="1234" >
Alternatively, defining a separate function for handling the input overflow yielded similar results:
<script>
handleMaxInput = function(){
var x = document.getElementById('number_text');
let value = x.value
if (value.length >= 6){
x.blur()
return false
}
};
</script>
<input ... id='number_text' ... onkeyup="handleMaxInput()" ... >
To achieve consistent behavior across browsers, especially in Firefox, I found a way to programmatically force recalculating the letter spacing after losing focus:
- Adjust the inline style of the input's letter-spacing property temporarily.
- Remove the "number_text" class from the input element.
- Reapply the class and remove the inline style to trigger a refresh of the letter spacing.
A JavaScript implementation of this concept would look like this:
handleMaxInput = function(){
var x = document.getElementById('number_text');
let value = x.value
if (value.length >= 6){
x.classList.remove('number_text')
x.style.letterSpacing = '0px'
setTimeout(function() {
x.classList.add('number_text')
setTimeout(function() {
x.style.removeProperty('letter-spacing')
x.blur
}, (1));
}, (1));
}
}
By allowing a brief delay for browser rendering updates, we can ensure seamless behavior post-focus change in both Chrome and Firefox.
Note: The timeout functions are essential for proper browser recalibration.
Note: You can choose whether to include .blur() in the function to shift focus away from the input field, depending on your preference.
I hope these insights contribute to your understanding of the problem and provide a viable solution that minimizes any flickering discrepancies across browsers. Remember, there are multiple approaches available, so feel free to explore other suggestions that suit your needs!