How to display the arrays in a Textarea element

Question

I want to show the very hard array and hard array in the textarea. Right now, it shows under the textarea as I don't know how to show it in the textarea. The user gives the input and the server response with the hard and very hard sentences from the user input. The hard sentences have a yellow background and the very hard have red background. For now, only the hard and very hard sentences with yellow and red background respectively is shown below the textarea and not the whole thing but I think it isn't intuitive as the user would have to go and search for the sentences in the textarea again as where the sentence exactly lies. So I want the whole thing to be shown in the textarea itself with the hard and very hard sentences highlighted in yellow and red background.

Right now my code looks something like this:

state={
    hardArray: [],
    vhardArray: []
}

  performHard = async () => {
    const { enteredText } = this.state;
    const body = { text: enteredText };
    const stringifiedBody = JSON.stringify(body);
    const options = {
      method: "POST",
      headers: {
        "Content-Type": "application/json",
        Accept: "application/json"
      },
      body: stringifiedBody
    };
    const url = "api/same";

    try {
      const response = await fetch(url, options);
      const result = await response.json();
      this.setState(prevState => ({
        hardArray: [...prevState.hardArray, ...result.hard]
      }));
    } catch (error) {
      console.error("error");
    }
  };
  performVHard = async () => {
    const { enteredText } = this.state;
    const body = { text: enteredText };
    const stringifiedBody = JSON.stringify(body);
    const options = {
      method: "POST",
      headers: {
        "Content-Type": "application/json",
        Accept: "application/json"
      },
      body: stringifiedBody
    };
    const url ="api/same";
    try {
      const response = await fetch(url, options);
      const result = await response.json();
      this.setState(prevState => ({
        vhardArray: [...prevState.vhardArray, ...result.very_hard]
      }));
    } catch (error) {
      console.error("error");
    }
  };
  performAnalysis = () => {
    this.performHard();
    this.performVHard();
  };

  <textarea
    name="enteredText"       
    className="textareaclass"
    placeholder="Enter your text here"
    onChange={this.handleChange}
    value={enteredText}
    ></textarea>
  <Button 
   className="rectangle-3" 
   onClick={this.performAnalysis}>Analyse
   </Button>
  <div>
   {this.state.hardArray.map((word, i) => (
     <span className="hardColor">{word}</span>
   ))}
   {this.state.vhardArray.map((word, i) => (
     <span className="vhardColor">{word}</span>
   ))}
  </div>

edit: this is how I receive the respond from the server

{
  "hard": [
    "It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting",
    "I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation.",
  ]
 "very_hard": [
    “He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even 
     without looking.”
  ]
}

I want to show all the text in the same textarea where the user wrote his content instead of showing anywhere else in the browser as it will make everything look ugly.

Does this answer your question? [How can I pretty-print JSON using JavaScript?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4810841/how-can-i-pretty-print-json-using-javascript) — NVRM, Dec 14 '19 at 14:44
no it didn't @NVRM. I think it doesn't answer how I would inject them in the textarea. — UbuntuNewb, Dec 14 '19 at 14:50
According to this [post](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3435167/is-it-possible-to-have-several-different-textcolors-in-one-textarea/40898337) and this [post](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1619167/textarea-that-can-do-syntax-highlighting-on-the-fly), I don't think you can do that with a regular `textarea`. You may want to check out how [CodeMirror](https://codemirror.net/doc/internals.html) implements their colorful editor. — Microloft, Dec 14 '19 at 16:14
what if I want to show it another box then(not textarea) but the whole text with the hard and very hard highlighting with yellow and red respectively and the non hard or non very hard with just a simple white color background? — UbuntuNewb, Dec 14 '19 at 17:37

Mark Schultheiss · Answer 1 · 2020-01-06T13:12:55.157

You can only give a textarea one background color, but you can make it transparent and put things behind it to add some color, yea this is a total hack and you will need to fiddle with the sizes and the blank lines to move the text down a bit - I will leave that exercise to you.

This also does not show how to get your values into the textarea but that is simple JavaScript/react code perhaps.

I altered this with some functions to illustrate where you MIGHT simply add/remove blank lines in the textarea to match the height of the background color - would probably have to adjust that background to match when this overflows the size, OR you might adjust the background to make it smaller for the colors.

I will leave it to you to determine which is the better option, I used "|" and "||" as the line/section separators as once it is in the textarea and edited you will need something like that.

All I have time for right now to enhance this but should give a starting point for this somewhat edge case without a clear standard solution.

.message {
  width: 300px;
  height: 150px;
  display: block;
  position: absolute;
}

textarea.format-custom,
.custom-underlay,
.underlay {
  margin: 0;
  box-sizing: border-box;
  vertical-align: top;
  display: block;
  position: absolute;
  border: lime solid 1px;
}

textarea.format-custom {
  width: 100%;
  height: 100%;
  background: transparent;
  resize: none;
  display: block;
}

.underlay {
  width: 100%;
  height: 100%;
  background: transparent;
  display: block;
  z-index: -1;
}

.custom-underlay {
  width: 100%;
  height: 50%;
  margin: 0;
  box-sizing: border-box;
  vertical-align: top;
}

.custom-underlay.top {
  background-color: #FFDDDD;
  top: 0;
  left: 0;
}

.custom-underlay.bottom {
  background-color: #DDDDFF;
  top: 50%;
  left: 0;
}

<div class="message">
  <label for="msg">Your message:</label>
  <textarea id="msg" name="user_message" class="format-custom">howdy, I am here
  
  
  
  
bottom of here</textarea>
  <div class="underlay">
    <div class="custom-underlay top"></div>
    <div class="custom-underlay bottom"></div>
  </div>
</div>

Alternate idea from question, put text on the div's behind:

'use strict';
// borrowed code from https://stackoverflow.com/a/17590149/125981
// makeClass - By Hubert Kauker (MIT Licensed)
// original by John Resig (MIT Licensed).
var makeClass = (function(Void) {
  return function() {
    var constructor = function() {
      var init = constructor.prototype.init,
        hasInitMethod = (typeof init == "function"),
        instance;
      if (this instanceof constructor) {
        if (hasInitMethod) init.apply(this, arguments);
      } else {
        Void.prototype = constructor.prototype;
        instance = new Void();
        if (hasInitMethod) init.apply(instance, arguments);
        return instance;
      }
    };
    return constructor;
  };
})(function() {});

//make a class MyApp using above
var MyApp = makeClass();

// create MyApp functional part using the init:
MyApp.prototype.init = function(myItem, showmeClass = "showme", separator = "|", groupSeparator = "||") {
  let eventChangeName = "change";
  let textElement = document.getElementById(myItem);
  let showme = textElement.closest(".container").getElementsByClassName(showmeClass)[0];
  let lineSep = "|\n";
  let myData = {
    hard: [],
    very_hard: []
  };
  this.sentData = {
    hard: [],
    very_hard: []
  };

  //so we can tell the lines
  function getStyle(elId, styleProp) {
    var x = document.getElementById(elId);
    let y = {};
    if (x.currentStyle) {
      y = x.currentStyle[styleProp];
    } else if (window.getComputedStyle) {
      y = document.defaultView.getComputedStyle(x, null).getPropertyValue(styleProp);
    }
    return y;
  }

  function getTextareaThings(myTextarea) {
    let taComputedStyles = window.getComputedStyle(myTextarea);
    return {
      height: myTextarea.style.height,
      rows: myTextarea.rows,
      clientHeight: myTextarea.clientHeight,
      lineHeight: taComputedStyles.getPropertyValue('line-height'),
      font: taComputedStyles.getPropertyValue('font-size')
    };
  }

  function getLinesInString(myString) {
    /* new line things: /r old Mac, /cr/lf some, /n some
     all the "new line": regex: /\r\n|\n|\r/gm
     above reduced regex: g and m are for global and multiline flags */
    let nl = /[\r\n]+/gm;
    let lines = [];
    lines = myString.split(nl);
    return lines;
  }

  function splitGroupString(myString, separator) {
    let strings = [];
    strings = myString.split(separator);
    return strings;
  }

  function getGroupsInString(myString) {
    return splitGroupString(myString, groupSeparator);
  }

  function getGroupItemsInString(myString) {
    return splitGroupString(myString, separator);
  }

  function getCurrentValue() {
    return textElement.value;
  }

  function addNewLines(text, count) {
    let newLine = "\n";
    return text + newLine.repeat(count);
  }
  // make stuff obvious
  function onFocusTextareaValue(event) {
    showForDebug(event);
  }

  function onChangeTextareaValue(event) {
    if (event.type == eventChangeName) {
      event.stopPropagation();
      event.stopImmediatePropagation();
    }
    showForDebug(event);
  }

  function showForDebug(event) {
    let what = "Event: " + event.type;
    let b = "<br />";
    let tat = getTextareaThings(event.target);
    let v = getCurrentValue().replace(what, "");
    showme.innerHTML = what + b + ": lines:" + getLinesInString(v).length + b + v;
  }

  function getStringLineCount(arr) {
    arr.length;
  }

  function getGroupItems() {
    let groups = getGroupsInString(getCurrentValue());
    let groupItems = {
      count: groups.length, // how many groups, two in the definition (top/bottom)
      groups: []
    };
    groups.forEach(function(group, index, groupsArr) {
      let items = getGroupItemsInString(group);
      // determine how to define "group name", I use a string and the index here
      let gname = "group" + index;
      let g = {
        itemCount: items.length // number in this group
      };
      g[gname] = {
        items: []
      };
      items.forEach(function(item, itemindex, itemsArr) {
        let itemName = "item" + itemindex;
        let itemobj = {};
        itemobj[itemName] = {
          items: item
        };
        g[gname].items.push(itemobj);
      });
      groupItems.groups.push(g);
    });
    return groupItems;
  }
  // setup events
  textElement.addEventListener(eventChangeName, onChangeTextareaValue, false);
  textElement.addEventListener("focus", onFocusTextareaValue, false);
  this.getGeometry = function() {
    let geometry = {};
    let element = textElement;
    let rect = element.getBoundingClientRect();
    geometry.top = rect.top;
    geometry.right = rect.right;
    geometry.bottom = rect.bottom;
    geometry.left = rect.left;
    geometry.offsetHeight = element.offsetHeight;
    geometry.rows = element.rows;
    geometry.clientHeight = element.clientHeight;
    geometry.fontSize = this.getStyleProperty("font-size");
    geometry.lineCount = this.getLines().length;
    geometry.lineHeight = this.getLineHeight();
    geometry.height = geometry.bottom - geometry.top;
    geometry.width = geometry.right - geometry.left;
    console.log("Geometry:",geometry);
  };
  
  this.getMetrics = function() {
    let fSize = this.getStyleProperty("font-size");
    let lineCount = this.getLines().length;
    let lineHeight = this.getLineHeight();
    let yh = lineHeight / lineCount;

    let yfhPixel = parseInt(fSize, 10);
    let yLineY = yh * yfhPixel;
    console.log("LH:", lineHeight, "font:", fSize, "Lines:", lineCount, "lineHeight:", lineHeight, "yh:", yh, "yfPixel:", yfhPixel, "yLineY:", yLineY);
  };

  this.getStyleProperty = function(propertyName) {
    return getStyle(textElement.id, propertyName)
  };

  // public functions and objects
  this.getLines = function() {
    return getLinesInString(getCurrentValue());
  };
  this.getGroups = function() {
    return getGroupsInString(getCurrentValue());
  };
  this.setText = function(content) {
    if (!content) {
      content = this.sentData;
    }

    let hard = content.hard.join(lineSep);
    let veryHard = content.very_hard.join(lineSep);
    this.textElement.value = hard.concat("|" + lineSep, veryHard);
  };
  this.getLineHeight = function(element) {
    if (!element) {
      element = textElement;
    }
    let temp = document.createElement(element.nodeName);
    temp.setAttribute("style", "margin:0px;padding:0px;font-family:" + element.style.fontFamily + ";font-size:" + element.style.fontSize);
    temp.innerHTML = "test";
    temp = element.parentNode.appendChild(temp);
    let lineHeight = temp.clientHeight;
    temp.parentNode.removeChild(temp);
    return lineHeight;
  };

  this.getGroupItems = function() {
    return getGroupItems();
  };
  this.textElement = textElement;
  this.showme = showme;
};
let sentData = {
  hard: [
    "It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting",
    "I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation."
  ],
  very_hard: ["He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking."]
};

// create instances and use our app, pass the id
var containerApp = MyApp("textThing"); //default last three parameters

containerApp.sentData = sentData;
containerApp.setText();
let groups = containerApp.getGroups();
let groupItems = containerApp.getGroupItems();
containerApp.getMetrics();
containerApp.getGeometry();


// create instances and use our app, pass the id
var containerApp2 = MyApp("msgTwo", "showme", "|", "||");

//console.log("Second One Lines:", containerApp2.getLines().length);
//containerApp2.getMetrics();
//containerApp2.getGeometry();

.page-container {
  display: flex;
  /* center and stack the containers*/
  justify-content: center;
  flex-direction: column;
  align-items: center;
  font-size: 62.5%;
}

.container {
  border: solid 1px black;
}

.container-block {
  border: 2px dashed #AAAAAA;
}

.container-items {
  width: 500px;
  position: relative;
}

.container-items .format-custom,
.container-items label {
  width: 100%;
}

.container-items .format-custom {
  height: 10em
}

.message-hr {
  border: 1px solid blue;
  background-color: blue;
  height: 0.05em;
  width: 450px;
  align-items: center;
  margin: 0.5em;
}

.showme {
  border: dotted 2px dodgerblue;
  background-color: #EEEEEE;
  padding: 1em;
}

textarea.format-custom,
.custom-underlay,
.underlay {
  margin: 0;
  box-sizing: border-box;
  vertical-align: top;
  display: block;
  border: lime solid 1px;
}

textarea.format-custom {
  width: 100%;
  height: 3em;
  background: transparent;
  resize: none;
  border: red solid 1px;
  padding: 0.5em;
}

.underlay {
  border: 1px solid #fff;
  width: 100%;
  height: 100%;
  background: transparent;
  top: 1em;
  left: 0;
  display: block;
  z-index: -1;
  position: absolute;
}

.custom-underlay {
  width: 100%;
  height: 50%;
  margin: 0;
  box-sizing: border-box;
  vertical-align: top;
  position: absolute;
}

.custom-underlay.top {
  background-color: #FFFF00;
  top: 0;
  left: 0;
}

.custom-underlay.bottom {
  background-color: #FFAAAA;
  top: 50%;
  left: 0;
}

<div class="page-container">
  <div class="container">
    <div class="container-block">
      <div class="container-items">
        <label for="textThing">Your message:</label>
        <textarea id="textThing" name="textThing" class="format-custom">howdy, I am here|another one | cheese burgers
fries and a drink   
|| 
bottom of here| bottom second</textarea>
        <div class="underlay">
          <div class="custom-underlay top"></div>
          <div class="custom-underlay bottom"></div>
        </div>
      </div>
    </div>
    <div class="showme">xxxone</div>
  </div>
  <div class="container">
    <div class="container-block">
      <div class="message-hr container-items">
        &nbsp;</div>
    </div>
  </div>
  <div class="container">
    <div class="container-block">
      <div class="container-items">
        <label for="msgTwo">Second message:</label>
        <textarea id="msgTwo" name="msgTwo" class="format-custom">Not the same|Nxxt one 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 || 
bottom of next</textarea>
        <div class="underlay">
          <div class="custom-underlay top"></div>
          <div class="custom-underlay bottom"></div>
        </div>
      </div>
    </div>
    <div class="showme">xxxtwo</div>
  </div>
</div>

It would be not possible like this i believe cause one line won't be able to separate the hard and very hard sentences as they won't show in uniform manner, like hard sentences first and very hard sentences after hard sentences. It can be anything at first, very hard may also come first and then hard sentences later, depends on what the user inputs. so I think textarea won't work at all. What if I want to keep everything in a div block container and the show all the texts that the user enters with hard and very hard sentences show their corresponding colors while the rest in white background? — UbuntuNewb, Dec 14 '19 at 17:48
Well, you COULD simply put the text in the appropriate div behind the textarea and wipe the textarea text out, and when they focus again reverse that, putting the text back in. this way the textarea is still exposed for focus but the display is separated (say on focus out) — Mark Schultheiss, Dec 14 '19 at 19:30

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 14 '19 at 16:17

its not with color but in this code you can set a lable like this (hard: veryhard :)

    state = {
    value: "",
    hard: [],
    veryHard: []
  };

  handleChange = ({ target }) => {
    const { value, name } = target;
    console.log(value, name);
    this.setState({ value });
  };

  performAnalysis = () => {
    let hard = [
     //this state ,get from performHard function (you should set state it )
      "It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting",
      "I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation."
    ];
    let veryHard = [
      //this state ,get from performVHard function (you should set state it )
      "“He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.“"
    ];
    this.setState({ hard, veryHard });

    // you shoud setState like this in these 2 function
    // this.performHard();
    // this.performVHard();
  };
  render() {
    return (
      <div className="App">
        <header className="App-header">
          <textarea
            value={
              this.state.value.length
                ? this.state.value
                : " Hard : " +
                  " " +
                  this.state.hard +
                  " " +
                  "very Hard : " +
                  this.state.veryHard
            }
            onChange={this.handleChange}
          />
          <button onClick={this.performAnalysis}>analise</button>
        </header>
      </div>
    );
  }

its not exactly that you want,but you can get help from this code

How to display the arrays in a Textarea element

2 Answers2