Comments on: Counting characters in a field

By: Michelle Mallo

Michelle Mallo — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 16:51:09 +0000

Thanks so much for this example. I put all of the above code on the HTML Area – Constant value and it worked like a charm. There was one typo in the above code that I had to fix in order to get it working. The “addEvent” function begins with a lower case – while the call begins with uppercase (“AddEvent”). If you make these two in synch it should work.

By: PeopleSoft Tipster

PeopleSoft Tipster — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:00:59 +0000

For those struggling, there is an alternative method here:

http://it.toolbox.com/wiki/index.php/Character_Counter_for_Long_Text_Fields

and here:

http://peoplesoft.ittoolbox.com/groups/technical-functional/peopletools-l/re-character-counter-javascript-1291660

By: Reddy

Reddy — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 19:00:55 +0000

My Requirement is something like this.

I have a page with Two Levels that is LEVEL 0 and LEVEL 1.

*********on LEVEL 0 I have ************

SUBPAGE DERIVED_WORK_BI,

SUBPAGE BI_PB_WRK,

SUBPAGE BI_HDR,

SECPAGE

*************Level 1 SCROLL AREA I have *********************

3 fields from BI_HDR_NOTE record ,

1 Field From NOTE_TYPE record,

1 field (Long Edit Box) from DERIVED_WORK_BI record,

1 Field from STD_NOTE_EF_VW

Limit of the LONG EDIT BOX field is 254 characters. On Page LONG EDIT BOX allows you to enter more than 254 Characters but when you save the page it will automatically truncate the data after 254 chars. Here I was planning to Place HTML area and display how many Characters are left while USER entering the data in the long edit box. I wanted to place the HTML AREA as field from DERIVED_WORK_BI

Example : If User entered 54 chars then in the HTML Area I have to show how many chars remaining to be entered.

Here I have to Link Up Long Edit Box with HTML Area. While I am keying in the data in Long Edit Box I have to Count the chars and display in HTML Area.

Can you please guide me thru this. How to Approach and What is code that I need to use and where?

I really Appreciate if you can Provide me the guidance.

By: Reddy

Reddy — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 02:33:38 +0000

Can some tell me step by step procedure to get to the functionality.
I tried creating HTML area and all I was able to get working is *****characters left******* . I am able to see HTML area on Page displaying the BOX and CHARACTERS LEFT.
I am not sure where to put the Function and how to link it up with Long Edit Box. Can some please Help on this.

By: John

John — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:14:24 +0000

Somehow i put the code ,but charcounter is not updating as i enter notes on the longedit box

By: PeopleSoft Tipster

PeopleSoft Tipster — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:42:06 +0000

You need the HTML Area below the long edit box, and it shouldn’t matter whether you have it as a constant or hold the code in a field and point the HTML Area to that. I usually set it to a constant while I’m frequently changing the code.

By: Jeff Dykstra

Jeff Dykstra — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:20:54 +0000

Hi,

I have tried this example without success. Perhaps if someone could explain where they are putting the Function calls that would help. Stating “we add the Character Counter function call to our Long Edit box” didn’t provide enough detail and I have tried creating HTMLAreas to put the code in both as constants and fields without success.

By: Mike Clarke

Mike Clarke — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 00:41:01 +0000

Great post. I used this code and have made a couple of mods to it for my own use.

1) I added a “keyup” event in addition to the “keydown” otherwise the counter wasn’t displaying correctly for me.

2) I also added some code to run the CharCounter function at startup — see http://xtrahot.chili-mango.net/2005/08/peoplesoft-page-javascript-insertion/ for more info. This counted whatever was already in the text box before the first key stroke.

I made a couple of other minor changes, but those made the most difference.

Mike Clarke

By: PeopleSoft Tipster

PeopleSoft Tipster — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 23:09:56 +0000

Good point Tim. I might have a look at this over the next few days.

By: Tim Palmer

Tim Palmer — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 10:29:40 +0000

OK, I have to admit I haven’t tried this out. But suppose the user already has 200 characters. If he or she types in the middle of the text, the end will be (silently) truncated – which could be quite surprising / annoying.

Ideally what you want is to prevent the 201st character from being added in the first place. I believe you can achieve this by returning a value (false) from the CharCounter function. Not sure if this works for pasting in text – there definitely needs to be validation on the server too (i.e. in Peoplecode) as a fallback.