Textarea
A textarea is where I provide a long answer to a question in an online form.
The Textarea component is used when longer form content needs to be entered into an online form.
Details
- Extends: USWDS Text input component
- Honeycrisp: Form element atom
- Customization: Styles
- Modifier:
.cfa-textarea
The Textarea extends the USWDS Text input component. Further customization is applied using the CSS modifier(s) .cfa-textarea to add styles defined in a custom stylesheet.
Modifier. A modifier is a class name that applies a variant, type, or extended style customization to modify the component's visual appearance.
Examples
The HTML for the demonstration above is rendered using context passed to the component's Thymeleaf template fragment. Learn how to include component templates for Thymeleaf and Ruby in the source and usage section.
<textarea class="usa-textarea cfa-textarea" id="textarea-6c19331260c97"></textarea>
Context is the information necessary to configure and render a component template to HTML. It may include plain text strings, HTML, class names, IDs or other HTML attribute values. The context here is defined as JSON but the root attributes are translated to different variable syntaxes for Thymeleaf and Ruby templates. Learn how to pass these variables to each component template in the source and usage section.
{
"textarea": {
"modifier": "cfa-textarea",
"id": "textarea-6c19331260c97"
}
}
Guidance
Form groups. Form questions with textarea components always use the form group component to wrap the textarea with a visible label element.
Refer to additional guidance on the USWDS documentation site.
USWDS documentation siteAdditional references
Accessibility
Refer to additional accessibility guidance on the USWDS documentation site.
Checklist Key
Design library component
Source and usage
- Sass stylesheet:
./_cfa-textarea.scss - Thymeleaf template fragment:
./cfa-textarea.th.html - Embedded Ruby (ERB) partial template:
./_cfa-textarea.html.erb
Below is a demonstration of customizing the component theme settings. Refer to the theme and package-level settings documentation.
// Theme-level settings
@use 'cfa-uswds-theme' with (
// Global theme settings that affect the component, changing these will affect other components
$cfa-color-base-lightest: 'gray-warm-4', // Affects the background color of the textarea
$cfa-color-base-lighter: 'gray-warm-10', // Affects the color of the textarea inset border
$cfa-color-base-ink: 'gray-warm-90' // Affects the text and border color of the textarea
);
// Package-level settings
@use 'cfa-core' with (
$cfa-form-elements-border-width: 2px,
$cfa-form-elements-padding-y: 2,
$cfa-form-elements-padding-x: 2.5,
$cfa-textarea-height: 15
);
Refer to the usage documentation for additional USWDS theme settings.
@use "uswds-core" with ( /* additional USWDS theme settings */ );
This is the pre-rendered template fragment from the package. It is the same template used to render the demonstrations above. You may copy and paste from this example or use the template using the th:block th:replace tag. See the example below.
<textarea th:fragment="textarea(textarea)" th:if="${textarea}" class="usa-textarea" th:classappend="${textarea.modifier}" th:attr="id=${textarea.id},name=${textarea.name},aria-invalid=${textarea.ariaInvalid},aria-describedby=${textarea.ariaDescribedby},required=${textarea.required},pattern=${textarea.pattern},placeholder=${textarea.placeholder},value=${textarea.value},inputmode=${textarea.inputmode},maxlength=${textarea.maxlength}"></textarea>
Below is an example of how to use the fragment from the package directory using the th:block th:replace inclusion tag. Replace the fragment parameters using your variables or context.
<th:block th:replace="~{packages/cfa-textarea/cfa-textarea.th :: textarea(${textarea})}" />
This is the pre-rendered partial template from the package. You may copy and paste from this example or use the template directly from the path.
<textarea class="usa-textarea<% if textarea['modifier'] %> <%= textarea['modifier'] %><% end %>"
<% if textarea['id'] %> id="<%= textarea['id'] %>"<% end %>
<% if textarea['name'] %> name="<%= textarea['name'] %>"<% end %>
<% if textarea['aria-invalid'] %> aria-invalid="<%= textarea['ariaInvalid'] %>"<% end %>
<% if textarea['aria-describedby'] %> aria-describedby="<%= textarea['ariaDescribedby'] %>"<% end %>
<% if textarea['required'] %> required<% end %>
<% if textarea['pattern'] %> pattern="<%= textarea['pattern'] %>"<% end %>
<% if textarea['placeholder'] %> placeholder="<%= textarea['placeholder'] %>"<% end %>
<% if textarea['value'] %> value="<%= textarea['value'] %>"<% end %>
<% if textarea['inputmode'] %> inputmode="<%= textarea['inputmode'] %>"<% end %>
<% if textarea['maxlength'] %> maxlength="<%= textarea['maxlength'] %>"<% end %>></textarea>
Below is an example of how to include the partial in a view from the package directory using the Ruby ERB class. Replace the argument values using your variables or context. In a Rails environment, the render method can be used instead with the same hash values.
<%= ERB.new(File.read('packages/cfa-textarea/_cfa-textarea.html.erb'), 0, 0, '@textarea').result_with_hash({textarea: textarea}) %>