Text

A text field is a form element that lets you enter text into a single-line field and send your input to the server when you are submitting the form. Text fields differ from another form element, the textarea, in that they are single-line fields and thus are meant for shorter entries.

A text field element comes in two variants. The first one lets you enter the text and see it as you type. The second one is used for entering passwords and obscures the typed characters with an asterisk (*), a bullet (•), or another symbol used by the browser.

To insert a text field into a document in CKEditor, place the cursor inside the form element and press the Text Field toolbar button. The Text Field Properties dialog window that will open lets you set the name, value, type, and size of a text field.

Text Field Properties dialog window in CKEditor

Below is an overview of all Text Field Properties dialog window elements:

• Name – the name of the text field element (name attribute).
• Value – the value of the text field element (value attribute). This text will be visible in the text field when the form is loaded in the browser.
• Character Width – the width of the text field specified as the number of characters that will fit in the field (size attribute). If omitted, the text field will have a default size determined by the browser.
• Maximum Characters – the limit of characters that may be entered into the text field (maxlength attribute). If omitted, the length of text that you enter into the field will be unlimited and once you exceed the size of the box, the text will scroll to the right.
• Type – the parameter that specifies whether the form field will be used for plain text (type="text" attribute) or passwords (type="password"attribute).

Once you configure the text field and click the OK button, the text field will be visible in CKEditor editing area with the default value shown either as plain text, or a series of asterisks/bullets.

Two text fields added to a form in CKEditor

The figure above shows two text fields added to a form. The first one is a Text type with character width set to 60 and the second one is a Password type with a default character width set by the browser.

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