Text field: preserve all whitespaces

[rooofl]

I have a text field and I need its value to preserve all white spaces, especially the one ahead all text content. Is that possible?

What I get when I <pre> the output:

1
  2
 3

What I need

   1
  2
 3

 

[BillH]

Yes, completely possible! Indeed, I'm not sure why you're losing the spaces.

Do you have a text formatter (on the Details tab) applied to the field? If so, this might be removing the spaces.

If the textarea uses a rich text editor (CKEditor, TinyMCE), it's possible that the editor (or an associated function) is removing the spaces, so it'd be worth checking the settings. I can't think of one that would do this off the top of my head, but I may well have forgotten something!

If it's neither of these, take a look at the HTML in your browser using the Inspect option. And if that doesn't clarify whether spaces are getting through to the page, you could check using something like:

echo str_replace(" ", "_", $page->myTextField);

If underscores appear, the issue is something to do with the rendering of the page.

You could try replacing the the underscores with &nbsp; in the above, though this shouldn't be necessary for the spaces to render in a <pre> element.

Edited May 29, 2023 by BillH
Incorrectly stated that strings of spaces would appear in the <p> element.

[Robin S]

InputfieldText (and other inputfield types that extend InputfieldText such as InputfieldTextarea) has a "noTrim" setting that is false by default, which is what causes leading and trailing whitespace to be trimmed out of the field value.

This setting isn't included in the config options for text fields (not sure why, perhaps because it's rarely needed) but you can add a config option for it with a hook:

$wire->addHookAfter('InputfieldText::getConfigInputfields', function(HookEvent $event) {
	/** @var InputfieldText */
	$inputfield = $event->object;
	/** @var InputfieldWrapper $wrapper */
	$wrapper = $event->return;
	$field = $inputfield->hasField;
	// Only for inputfields that are associated with a Field object
	if(!$field) return;
	// Add checkbox field to config to control noTrim setting
	/** @var InputfieldCheckbox $f */
	$f = $event->wire()->modules->get('InputfieldCheckbox');
	$f->name = 'noTrim';
	$f->label = 'No trim';
	$f->label2 = 'Do not trim whitespace from the field value';
	$f->checked($field->noTrim);
	if(!$field->noTrim) $f->collapsed = Inputfield::collapsedYes;
	$wrapper->add($f);
});

This will add a "No trim" checkbox to text fields, and if you tick the checkbox the field value won't be trimmed.

Result:

[rooofl]

Hi @Robin S and thank you for your hook, it appears to be exactly what I need. However, after some tests, the checkbox appears, the field is logged as noTrim = 1 with wire('log'), but the textarea content leading white spaces are still removed. Is there something else I should check? Currently, I have zero formatter and the content type is text.

Field Object ( [id] => 160 [name] => ascii_drawing [label] => [flags] => [type] => FieldtypeTextarea Object ( [data] => Array ( [inputfieldClass] => InputfieldTextarea [contentType] => 0 [htmlOptions] => Array ( ) ) ) [data] => Array ( [inputfieldClass] => InputfieldTextarea [contentType] => 0 [collapsed] => 0 [minlength] => 0 [maxlength] => 0 [showCount] => 0 [rows] => 5 [noTrim] => 1 ) )

Edit: The field is use with the FormBuilder module, maybe the FormBuilder associated field also trims the content?

[Robin S]

17 minutes ago, rooofl said:

Edit: The field is use with the FormBuilder module, maybe the FormBuilder associated field also trims the content?

If the field value is being set from a FormBuilder form field (e.g. send form submission to PW pages) then you will need to set the noTrim setting for the FormBuilder field too. Again, there is no config field for this but I expect you will be able to hook into the form rendering and/or processing and set noTrim=1. Ryan should be able to help with this in the FormBuilder subforum if you're not sure how.

[rooofl]

Yes, I just did that, adding noTrim to the FormBuilder field as well. But the issue still exists.

My logs:

[BillH]

I spoke too soon - should've checked first!

I realise that I've been using CKEditor fields for this sort of thing, and they add &nbsp; entities to the start of the line. Might this be a workaround?

Meanwhile, that's a really useful hook from @Robin S, which I've already made use of (but not for Form Builder fields).

[rooofl]

I tried using leading invisible characters or even visible ones, but trim() seams to transform 1    2 into 12 for the first line of the content.

[diogo]

On 5/30/2023 at 2:07 AM, Robin S said:

$wire->addHookAfter('InputfieldText::getConfigInputfields', function(HookEvent $event) {
	/** @var InputfieldText */
	$inputfield = $event->object;
	/** @var InputfieldWrapper $wrapper */
	$wrapper = $event->return;
	$field = $inputfield->hasField;
	// Only for inputfields that are associated with a Field object
	if(!$field) return;
	// Add checkbox field to config to control noTrim setting
	/** @var InputfieldCheckbox $f */
	$f = $event->wire()->modules->get('InputfieldCheckbox');
	$f->name = 'noTrim';
	$f->label = 'No trim';
	$f->label2 = 'Do not trim whitespace from the field value';
	$f->checked($field->noTrim);
	if(!$field->noTrim) $f->collapsed = Inputfield::collapsedYes;
	$wrapper->add($f);
});

Just used this for a field holding private keys. Perfect! Thanks @Robin S ?