Right to left Text HTML input

38
votes

For my website, i need to provide arabic support. Part of it is to provide input textboxes where when user types in, the new characters have to be appended to the left and the text has to be right aligned.

setting the css property to 

text-align:right

didn't work, as i could not get the cursor to come to the left and add letters there. So I removed that property and added 

direction:RTL

Here, the cursor came to the left and text was right aligned. but the newly added characters were not getting appended to the left. Instead they were getting appended to the right end only.

How do I fix this? please help..

For example, see the google arabic page search box. I need the exact behavior, although not with those fancy keyboard icon etc., http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=ar

8
cssinputarabicright-to-left
Normally <bdo dir="rtl">TEXT HERE</bdo> would do exacly that, but when receiving text from a form or such, it won't work. – Gust van de Wal
Could you post your solution? – user5326354

8 Answers

37
votes

Here's what I can think of:

  • Use direction:RTL for the RIGHT alignment
  • Write a JavaScript handler attached to the event: "onkeyup", which performs the shifting of the entered character to the LEFT (doing some text processing).
45
votes

You can use the dir="rtl" on the input. It is supported.

<input dir="rtl" id="foo"/>
8
votes
function rtl(element)
{   
    if(element.setSelectionRange){
        element.setSelectionRange(0,0);
    }
}




<input type="text" name="textbox" style="direction:RTL;" onkeyup="rtl(this);"/>

This code will do.

7
votes

Simply use this CSS, this will change your text field and cursor position from right to left.

input, textarea { 
 unicode-bidi:bidi-override; 
 direction: RTL; 
}
5
votes

Use only direction:RTL and when switched to a proper keyboard (e.g. Arabic) in the system settings, the newly added characters will correctly be appended to the left.

3
votes

Use on the input in css.

input {
  unicode-bidi:bidi-override;
  direction: RTL;
}
3
votes

A feature specific to Angular Material, in addition to direction: rtl, is :

.mat-form-field {
   text-align: start!important;
 }

This will work for both RLT & LTR

-1
votes

It works for Chrome browser.
Use a div element and make it editable.

    <div contenteditable="true">
    </div>