Control value of input in Aurelia

Question

I need to create an input in Aurelia that only accepts a phone number. If the user types 1234567890 into this input it should display (123) 456-7890 and the bound variable would be set to 1234567890 . The result should be the same if the user types (123) 456-7890 into the input as well. If the user types a letter into the input, the input should not display the letter, nor should the bound javascript variable get updated.

I'm able to partially achieve this using a ValueConverter:

phone.ts

export class PhoneValueConverter {
    private removeNonDigits(input) {
        let digits = '';

        // Remove non-digits. i.e. '(', ')', ' ' and '-'
        for (let i = 0; i < input.length; i++) {
            let char = input.charAt(i);

            if ('0' <= char && char <= '9')
                digits += char;
        }

        return digits;
    }

    toView(value) {
        if (!value)
            return value;

        value = this.removeNonDigits(value);

        let formatted = '(' + value.substring(0, 3);

        if (value.length >= 3)
            formatted += ') ' + value.substring(3, 6);
        if (value.length >= 6) {
            // Don't place an upper limit, otherwise the user would not
            // see the entire value
            formatted += '-' + value.substring(6);
        }

        return formatted;
    }

    fromView(value) {
        let digits = this.removeNonDigits(value);

        // Only accept a 9-digit phone number
        return digits.substring(0, 10);
    }
}

app.html

<template>
  ${PhoneNumber} <br>
  <require from="phone"></require>
  <input value.bind="PhoneNumber | phone">
</template>

This works perfectly in forcing PhoneNumber to always be 0-9 numerical digits. If the user types a letter, or a 10th digit, into the input, it will not be added to PhoneNumber - just as expected. But unfortunately, the value of the input ( $('input').value() , not value.bind ) will still contain the extra, incorrect character.

Is there an Aurelia convention in controlling what characters get added to the value of the input?

Answer 1

You can subscribe to the input's keydown event and prevent the default action when it's a character you don't want to appear in the input.

Here's an example of using this approach to build a very simple numeric input: https://gist.run?id=3101e8f73cf4da32445505d0e4258f01

app.html

<template>
  <require from="./numeric-input"></require>

  <numeric-input value.bind="value"></numeric-input>

  ${value}
</template>

app.js

export class App {
  value = '';
}

numeric-input.html

<template>
  <input type="text" value.bind="value" placeholder.bind="placeholder">
</template>

numeric-input.js

import {
  inject,
  bindable,
  bindingMode
} from 'aurelia-framework';

// http://stackoverflow.com/a/995193/725866
function isNavigationOrSelectionKey(e) {
  // Allow: backspace, delete, tab, escape, enter and .
  if ([46, 8, 9, 27, 13, 110, 190].indexOf(e.keyCode) !== -1 ||
    // Allow: Ctrl+A/X/C/V, Command+A/X/C/V
    ([65, 67, 86, 88].indexOf(e.keyCode) !== -1 && (e.ctrlKey === true || e.metaKey === true)) ||
    // Allow: home, end, left, right, down, up
    (e.keyCode >= 35 && e.keyCode <= 40)) {
     // let it happen, don't do anything
     return true;
  }
  return false;
}

// http://stackoverflow.com/a/995193/725866
function keydown (e) {
  if (isNavigationOrSelectionKey(e)) {
    return;
  }
  // If it's not a number, prevent the keypress...
  if ((e.shiftKey || (e.keyCode < 48 || e.keyCode > 57)) && (e.keyCode < 96 || e.keyCode > 105)) {
    e.preventDefault();
  }
}

@inject(Element)
export class NumericInput {
  @bindable({ defaultBindingMode: bindingMode.twoWay }) value;
  @bindable placeholder = '';

  constructor(element) {
    this.element = element;
  }

  attached() {
    this.element.addEventListener('keydown', keydown);
  }

  detached() {
    this.element.removeEventListener('keydown', keydown);
  }
}