Components

Character Counter

GitHub

A Stimulus controller that counts the number of characters in any input fields.

Installation

  1. Install the package

    Terminal
    $ yarn add @stimulus-components/character-counter

  2. Register the controller in your application

    app/javascript/controllers/index.js
    import { Application } from '@hotwired/stimulus'
import CharacterCounter from '@stimulus-components/character-counter'

const application = Application.start()
application.register('character-counter', CharacterCounter)

Example

Character Counter

There are 0 characters in this textarea.

Usage

app/views/index.html
<div data-controller="character-counter">
  <textarea data-character-counter-target="input"></textarea>

  <p>
    There are
    <strong data-character-counter-target="counter"></strong> characters in this textarea.
  </p>
</div>

You can use it in countdown mode, add the correct value and a maxlength attribute on the input/textarea field:

app/views/index.html
<div data-controller="character-counter" data-character-counter-countdown-value="true">
  <textarea data-character-counter-target="input" maxlength="280"></textarea>

  <p>
    There are
    <strong data-character-counter-target="counter"></strong> characters remaining.
  </p>
</div>

Configuration

AttributeDefaultDescriptionOptional
data-character-counter-countdown-valueundefinedActivate the countdown mode.✅

Extending Controller

You can use inheritance to extend the functionality of any Stimulus component:

app/javascript/controllers/character_counter_controller.js
import CharacterCounter from "@stimulus-components/character-counter"

export default class extends CharacterCounter {
  connect() {
    super.connect()
    console.log("Do what you want here.")

    this.count // Will return the number of characters in the input/texterea.
  }
}

This controller will automatically have access to targets defined in the parent class.

If you override the connect, disconnect or any other methods from the parent, you'll want to call super.method() to make sure the parent functionality is executed.