# Titanium.UI.TextArea

Will disable the "double tap and hold for long press" message when selecting an item.

On iOS this is a direct analog of the accessibilityElementsHidden property defined in the UIAccessibility Protocol.

On Android, setting accessibilityHidden calls the native View.setImportantForAccessibility method. The native method is only available in Android 4.1 (API level 16/Jelly Bean) and later; if this property is specified on earlier versions of Android, it is ignored.

On iOS this is a direct analog of the accessibilityHint property defined in the UIAccessibility Protocol. On Android, it is concatenated together with accessibilityLabel and accessibilityValue in the order: accessibilityLabel, accessibilityValue, accessibilityHint. The concatenated value is then passed as the argument to the native View.setContentDescription method.

On iOS this is a direct analog of the accessibilityLabel property defined in the UIAccessibility Protocol. On Android, it is concatenated together with accessibilityValue and accessibilityHint in the order: accessibilityLabel, accessibilityValue, accessibilityHint. The concatenated value is then passed as the argument to the native View.setContentDescription method. Defaults to Title or label of the control.

On iOS this is a direct analog of the accessibilityValue property defined in the UIAccessibility Protocol. On Android, it is concatenated together with accessibilityLabel and accessibilityHint in the order: accessibilityLabel, accessibilityValue, accessibilityHint. The concatenated value is then passed as the argument to the native View.setContentDescription method. Defaults to State or value of the control.

Used on iOS only. For Android, use anchorPoint.

Anchor point is specified as a fraction of the view's size. For example, {0, 0} is at the view's top-left corner, {0.5, 0.5} at its center and {1, 1} at its bottom-right corner.

See the "Using an anchorPoint" example in Titanium.UI.Animation for a demonstration. The default is center of this view.

The value of this property is the fully qualified name of the API. For example, Titanium.UI.Button returns Ti.UI.Button.

The attributed hint text by the text area. If set, avoid setting common attributes in text area, such as hintText, color and font, as unexpected behaviors may result.

This has no effect when used with hintType Ti.UI.HINT_TYPE_ANIMATED.

Prior to Release 3.6.0, assign this property an object from the <Titanium.UI.iOS.AttributedString> class.

Since Appcelerator CLI 4.1.0 (Alloy 1.7.0), for Alloy, you can use an <AttributedHintText> element inside a <TextField> element and set the text property as node text:

<Alloy>
  <Window>
      <TextField>
        <AttributedHintText>
            Alloy is great!
        </AttributedHintText>
      </TextField>
  </Window>
</Alloy>

Then set attributes in the TSS file:

"AttributedString" : {
  attributes: [
    {
      type: Ti.UI.ATTRIBUTE_FOREGROUND_COLOR,
      value: 'red',
      range: [0, 5]
    },
    {
      type: Ti.UI.ATTRIBUTE_UNDERLINES_STYLE,
      value: Ti.UI.ATTRIBUTE_UNDERLINE_STYLE_SINGLE,
      range: [9, 5]
    }
  ]
}

The underlying attributed string drawn by the textArea. If set, avoid setting common attributes in textArea, such as value, color and font, as unexpected behaviors may result.

Prior to Release 3.6.0, assign this property an object from the <Titanium.UI.iOS.AttributedString> class.

Since Appcelerator CLI 4.1.0 (Alloy 1.7.0), for Alloy, you can use an <AttributedString> element inside a <TextArea> element and set the text property as node text:

<Alloy>
  <Window>
      <TextArea>
        <AttributedString>
            Alloy is great!
        </AttributedString>
      </TextArea>
  </Window>
</Alloy>

Then set attributes in the TSS file:

"AttributedString" : {
  attributes: [
    {
      type: Ti.UI.ATTRIBUTE_FOREGROUND_COLOR,
      value: 'red',
      range: [0, 5]
    },
    {
      type: Ti.UI.ATTRIBUTE_UNDERLINES_STYLE,
      value: Ti.UI.ATTRIBUTE_UNDERLINE_STYLE_SINGLE,
      range: [9, 5]
    }
  ]
}

Set to true to enable automatic spelling correction. On iOS 9+, this can be used to disable QuickType suggestions.

If this property is not explicitly defined, it behaves as though it were set to true.

On Android and iOS, the returned default value is undefined, but behave as if the value is true.

This sets the hint or content type to aid the autofill feature of iOS and Android to function.

iOS supports an additional autolink type, AUTOLINK_CALENDAR.

Multiple autolink values can be combined with a bitwise OR. For example:

textArea.autoLink = Ti.UI.AUTOLINK_MAP_ADDRESSES|Ti.UI.AUTOLINK_PHONE_NUMBERS;

Prior to Release 3.0, this field used platform-specific constants. These are now deprecated in favor of the AUTOLINK constants.

On Android, the LINKIFY legacy constants are defined in Titanium.UI.Android.

On iOS, the AUTODETECT legacy constants are defined in Titanium.UI.iOS.

For information about color values, see the "Colors" section of Titanium.UI. Defaults to Transparent.

For information about color values, see the "Colors" section of Titanium.UI. Defaults to the normal background color of this view.

If backgroundDisabledImage is undefined, and the normal background imagebackgroundImage is set, the normal image is used when this view is disabled.

For information about color values, see the "Colors" section of Titanium.UI.

For normal views, the focused color is only used if focusable is true. Defaults to the normal background color of this view.

For normal views, the focused background is only used if focusable is true. If backgroundFocusedImage is undefined, and the normal background image backgroundImage is set, the normal image is used when this view is focused.

A gradient can be defined as either linear or radial. A linear gradient varies continuously along a line between the startPoint and endPoint.

A radial gradient is interpolated between two circles, defined by startPoint and startRadius and endPoint and endRadius respectively.

The start points, end points and radius values can be defined in device units, in the view's coordinates, or as percentages of the view's size. Thus, if a view is 60 x 60, the center point of the view can be specified as:

{ x: 30, y: 30 }

Or:

{ x: '50%', y: '50%' }

When specifying multiple colors, you can specify an offset value for each color, defining how far into the gradient it takes effect. For example, the following color array specifies a gradient that goes from red to blue back to red:

colors: [ { color: 'red', offset: 0.0}, { color: 'blue', offset: 0.25 }, { color: 'red', offset: 1.0 } ]

Android's linear gradients ignores backfillStart and backfillEnd, treating them as if they are true. Android's radial gradients ignore the endPoint property. Defaults to no gradient.

Default behavior when backgroundImage is unspecified depends on the type of view and the platform. For generic views, no image is used. For most controls (buttons, textfields, and so on), platform-specific default images are used.

See the section on backgroundLeftCap and backgroundTopCap behavior on iOS in Titanium.UI.View.

Setting this to true makes the set backgroundImage repeat across the view as a series of tiles. The tiling begins in the upper-left corner, where the upper-left corner of the background image is rendered. The image is then tiled to fill the available space of the view.

Note that setting this to true may incur performance penalties for large views or background images, as the tiling must be redone whenever a view is resized.

On iOS, the following views do not currently support tiled backgrounds:

• Titanium.UI.Button
• Titanium.UI.TextField
• Titanium.UI.Label

For information about color values, see the "Colors" section of Titanium.UI.

focusable must be true for normal views.

Defaults to background color of this view.

For normal views, the selected background is only used if focusable is true.

If backgroundSelectedImage is undefined, and the normal background image backgroundImage is set the normal image is used when this view is selected.

See the section on backgroundLeftCap and backgroundTopCap behavior on iOS in Titanium.UI.View.

For information about color values, see the "Colors" section of Titanium.UI.

Defaults to the normal background color of this view (Android), black (iOS).

Each corner is rounded using an arc of a circle. Values for each corner can be specified. For example, '20px 20px' will set both left and right corners to 20px. Specifying '20px 20px 20px 20px' will set top-left, top-right, bottom-right and bottom-left corners in that order.

If you have issues with dark artifacts on Android you can try to disable Hardware acceleration by setting a backgroundColor with a small amount of transparency: backgroundColor:"rgba(255,255,255,254)".

If borderColor is set without borderWidth, this value will be changed to 1 of the unit declared as 'ti.ui.defaultunit' in tiapp.xml descriptor.

This position is relative to the view's parent. Exact interpretation depends on the parent view's layout property. Can be either a float value or a dimension string (for example, '50%' or '10px').

This is an input property for specifying where the view should be positioned, and does not represent the view's calculated position.

Defaults to undefined.

Some proxies (most commonly views) have a relationship to other proxies, often established by the add() method. For example, for a button added to a window, a click event on the button would bubble up to the window. Other common parents are table sections to their rows, table views to their sections, and scrollable views to their views. Set this property to false to disable the bubbling to the proxy's parent.

This is an input property for specifying where the view should be positioned, and does not represent the view's calculated position.

Defaults to undefined.

Setting this to CLIP_MODE_ENABLED enforces all child views to be clipped to this views bounds. Setting this to CLIP_MODE_DISABLED allows child views to be drawn outside the bounds of this view. When set to CLIP_MODE_DEFAULT or when this property is not set, clipping behavior is inferred. See section on iOS Clipping Behavior in Titanium.UI.View.

Defaults to undefined. Behaves as if set to CLIP_MODE_DEFAULT.

For information about color values, see the "Colors" section of Titanium.UI.

The elevation of a view determines the appearance of its shadow. Higher elevations produce larger and softer shadows.

Note: The elevation property only works on Titanium.UI.View objects. Many Android components have a default elevation that cannot be modified. For more information, see Google design guidelines: Elevation and shadows.

When set false, the "copy" and "cut" options will not appear in the context menu. The Command+C and Command+X keyboard shortcuts will be ignored as well.

If true, the return key is disabled when this text area is empty, and automatically enabled as soon as the user types any text in the area.

This is a security feature to protect an app from "tapjacking", where a malicious app can use a system overlay to intercept touch events in your app or to trick the end-user to tap on UI in your app intended for the overlay.

Setting this property to true causes touch related events (including "click") to not be fired if a system overlay overlaps the view.

Switch between a fullscreen keyboard in landscape mode (default) or a non-fullscreen keyboard which will leave some space to display UI elements.

When the text is specified using an attributed string and the text has an attribute of type ATTRIBUTE_LINK, this property controls if the system should handle that link automatically.

Defaults to: If undefined, defaults to either FILL or SIZE depending on the view. See "View Types and Default Layout Behavior" in Transitioning to the New UI Layout System.

Can be either a float value or a dimension string (for example, '50%' or '40dp'). Can also be one of the following special values:

• SIZE. The view should size itself to fit its contents.
• FILL. The view should size itself to fill its parent.
• 'auto'. Represents the default sizing behavior for a given type of view. The use of 'auto' is deprecated, and should be replaced with the SIZE or FILL constants if it is necessary to set the view's behavior explicitly.

This is an input property for specifying the view's height dimension. To determine the view's size once rendered, use the rect or size properties.

If setting hiddenBehavior to HIDDEN_BEHAVIOR_GONE it will automatically release the space the view occupied. For example: in a vertical layout the views below the object will move up when you hide an object with hiddenBehavior:Titanium.UI.HIDDEN_BEHAVIOR_GONE.

• HIDDEN_BEHAVIOR_INVISIBLE. Keeps the space and just hides the object (default).
• HIDDEN_BEHAVIOR_GONE. Releases the space and hides the object.

Defaults to Titanium.UI.HIDDEN_BEHAVIOR_INVISIBLE.

Hint text is hidden when the user enters text into this text area.

Use the backslash and letter n line feed character combination, ie \n, to force a new line.

Use unicode characters, such as those included in (but not limited to) the Unicode List of Useful Symbols section of wikipedia, to insert special characters and symbols.

Hint text color in Android is determined by the theme of the application. By default, a Titanium app uses a Dark theme. When you create the background to be white, the hint text color would also be white, hence not visible to the user. To change this, you can edit the "tiapp.xml" file with another theme. Example as follows:

<android xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <manifest>
        <application android:theme="@style/Theme.MaterialComponents.Light.Bridge"/>
    </manifest>
</android>

Another way to change the hint text color is to use this property and specify a color.

This has no effect when used with hintType Ti.UI.HINT_TYPE_ANIMATED. Instead a theme must be used that defines the android:textColorHint attribute.

Only one of hintText or hinttextid should be specified.

Setting this to HINT_TYPE_ANIMATED will use the animated TextInputLayout on Android.

Note that the parallax effect only happens by tilting the device so results can not be seen on Simulator. To clear all motion effects, use the <Titanium.UI.clearMotionEffects> method.

For more information, see the discussion of horizontal layout mode in the description of the layout property.

The id property of the Ti.UI.View represents the view's identifier. The identifier string does not have to be unique. You can use this property with getViewById method.

When true the screen will not power down. Note: enabling this feature will use more power, thereby adversely affecting run time when on battery. For iOS look at idleTimerDisabled.

As of Release 2.0, because iOS disallows a view (including toolbar buttons) to be in two places at once, developers desiring textAreas or Titanium.UI.TextField to share a toolbar can instead use a single Titanium.UI.Toolbar instead of having arrays sharing toolbar buttons.

For information about color values, see the "Colors" section of Titanium.UI.

When asking for a specific kind of user input, such as a phone number or email address, you should always specify the appropriate keyboard type.

There are three layout options:

• composite (or absolute). Default layout. A child view is positioned based on its positioning properties or "pins" (top, bottom, left, right and center). If no positioning properties are specified, the child is centered.

  The child is always sized based on its width and height properties, if these are specified. If the child's height or width is not specified explicitly, it may be calculated implicitly from the positioning properties. For example, if both left and center.x are specified, they can be used to calculate the width of the child control.

  Because the size and position properties can conflict, there is a specific precedence order for the layout properties. For vertical positioning, the precedence order is: height, top, center.y, bottom.

  The following table summarizes the various combinations of properties that can be used for vertical positioning, in order from highest precedence to lowest. (For example, if height, center.y and bottom are all specified, the height and center.y values take precedence.)

  Scenario	Behavior
  height & top specified	Child positioned top unit from parent's top, using specified height; any center.y and bottom values are ignored.
  height & center.y specified	Child positioned with center at center.y, using specified height; any bottom value is ignored.
  height & bottom specified	Child positioned bottom units from parent's bottom, using specified height.
  top & center.y specified	Child positioned with top edge top units from parent's top and center at center.y. Height is determined implicitly; any bottom value is ignored.
  top & bottom specified	Child positioned with top edge top units from parent's top and bottom edge bottom units from parent's bottom. Height is determined implicitly.
  Only top specified	Child positioned top units from parent's top, and uses the default height calculation for the view type.
  center.y and bottom specified	Child positioned with center at center.y and bottom edge bottom units from parent's bottom. Height is determined implicitly.
  Only center.y specified	Child positioned with center at center.y, and uses the default height calculation for the view type.
  Only bottom specified	Child positioned with bottom edge bottom units from parent's bottom, and uses the default height calculation for the view type.
  height, top, center.y, and bottom unspecified	Child entered vertically in the parent and uses the default height calculation for the child view type.

  Horizontal positioning works like vertical positioning, except that the precedence is width, left, center.x, right.

  For complete details on composite layout rules, see Transitioning to the New UI Layout System in the Titanium Mobile Guides.

• vertical. Children are laid out vertically from top to bottom. The first child is laid out top units from its parent's bounding box. Each subsequent child is laid out below the previous child. The space between children is equal to the upper child's bottom value plus the lower child's top value.

  Each child is positioned horizontally as in the composite layout mode.

• horizontal. Horizontal layouts have different behavior depending on whether wrapping is enabled. Wrapping is enabled by default (the horizontalWrap property is true).

  With wrapping behavior, the children are laid out horizontally from left to right, in rows. If a child requires more horizontal space than exists in the current row, it is wrapped to a new row. The height of each row is equal to the maximum height of the children in that row.

  Wrapping behavior is available on iOS and Android. When the horizontalWrap property is set to true, the first row is placed at the top of the parent view, and successive rows are placed below the first row. Each child is positioned vertically within its row somewhat like composite layout mode. In particular:

  • If neither top or bottom is specified, the child is centered in the row.
  • If either top or bottom is specified, the child is aligned to either the top or bottom of the row, with the specified amount of padding.
  • If both top and bottom is specified for a given child, the properties are both treated as padding.

  If the horizontalWrap property is false, the behavior is more equivalent to a vertical layout. Children are laid or horizontally from left to right in a single row. The left and right properties are used as padding between the children, and the top and bottom properties are used to position the children vertically.

  Defaults to Composite layout.

This position is relative to the view's parent. Exact interpretation depends on the parent view's layout property. Can be either a float value or a dimension string (for example, '50%' or '10px').

This is an input property for specifying where the view should be positioned, and does not represent the view's calculated position.

Defaults to undefined.

If this property is set to a Window or TabGroup, then the corresponding Activity lifecycle event callbacks will also be called on the proxy. Proxies that require the activity lifecycle will need this property set to the appropriate containing Window or TabGroup.

Sets the height of the text area by line height. Set to -1 to respect the view's height property instead.

Any attempt to input text beyond this length (including pasting a string larger than maxLength) will not edit the field's contents. A value of -1 indicates unlimited length.

Sets the maximum of lines that the field will be extended to when pressing Return.

If this property is set to false, the animate call is ignored if the view is currently being animated.

Defaults to undefined but behaves as false

Preview context to present the "Peek and Pop" of a view. Use an configured instance of Titanium.UI.iOS.PreviewContext here.

Note: This property can only be used on devices running iOS9 or later and supporting 3D-Touch. It is ignored on older devices and can manually be checked using forceTouchSupported.

The view's bounding box is defined by its size and position.

The view's size is rect.width x rect.height. The view's top-left position relative to its parent is (rect.x , rect.y).

On Android it will also return rect.absoluteX and 'rect.absoluteY' which are relative to the main window.

The correct values will only be available when layout is complete. To determine when layout is complete, add a listener for the postlayout event.

This position is relative to the view's parent. Exact interpretation depends on the parent view's layout property. Can be either a float value or a dimension string (for example, '50%' or '10px').

This is an input property for specifying where the view should be positioned, and does not represent the view's calculated position.

Defaults to undefined.

Translation values are applied to the static post layout value.

Translation values are applied to the static post layout value.

Translation values are applied to the static post layout value.

Translation values are applied to the static post layout value.

Translation values are applied to the static post layout value.

The scroll-to-top gesture is a tap on the status bar; The default value of this property is true. This gesture works when you have a single visible text area. If there are multiple table views, web views, text areas, and/or scroll views visible, you will need to disable (set to false) on the above views you DON'T want this behaviour on. The remaining view will then respond to scroll-to-top gesture.

This property is useful to track the current cursor position of the text area. On iOS this property can be used in lieu of the selected event.

This method will return null on android and undefined on iOS if the view has not yet been attached to the window.

Although property returns a Dimension dictionary, only the width and height properties are valid. The position properties--x and y--are always 0.

To find the position and size of the view, use the rect property instead.

The correct values will only be available when layout is complete. To determine when layout is complete, add a listener for the postlayout event.

This property is a direct correspondant of the tintColor property of UIView on iOS. If no value is specified, the tintColor of the View is inherited from its superview.

Assigning a value to this property causes the tool tip to be displayed for the view. Setting the property to null cancels the display of the tool tip for the view. Note: This property is only used for apps targeting macOS Catalyst.

This position is relative to the view's parent. Exact interpretation depends on the parent view's layout property. Can be either a float value or a dimension string (for example, '50%' or '10px').

This is an input property for specifying where the view should be positioned, and does not represent the view's calculated position.

If false, will forward the events to peers.

Touch feedback is only applied to a view's background. It is never applied to the view's foreground content such as a Titanium.UI.ImageView's image.

For Titanium versions older than 9.1.0, touch feedback only works if you set the backgroundColor property to a non-transparent color.

Defaults to provided theme color.

Android only supports Matrix2D transforms.

Name should be unique in the View hierarchy.

Translation values are applied to the static post layout value.

Translation values are applied to the static post layout value.

Translation values are applied to the static post layout value.

Use the backslash and letter n line feed character combination, ie \n, to force a new line.

Use unicode characters, such as those included in (but not limited to) the Unicode List of Useful Symbols section of wikipedia, to insert special characters and symbols.

Note that the parallax effect only happens by tilting the device so results can not be seen on Simulator. To clear all motion effects, use the <Titanium.UI.clearMotionEffects> method.

iOS Defaults to undefined. Behaves as if transparent. Android default is black. On Android you can set <item name="android:ambientShadowAlpha">0.5</item> and <item name="android:spotShadowAlpha">0.5</item> in your theme to change the opacity.

Defaults to undefined. Behaves as if set to (0,-3)

Defaults to undefined. Behaves as if set to 3. Accepts density units as of 10.0.1.

Defaults to: If undefined, defaults to either FILL or SIZE depending on the view. See "View Types and Default Layout Behavior" in Transitioning to the New UI Layout System.

Can be either a float value or a dimension string (for example, '50%' or '40dp'). Can also be one of the following special values:

• SIZE. The view should size itself to fit its contents.
• FILL. The view should size itself to fill its parent.
• 'auto'. Represents the default sizing behavior for a given type of view. The use of 'auto' is deprecated, and should be replaced with the SIZE or FILL constants if it is necessary to set the view's behavior explicitly.

This is an input property for specifying the view's width dimension. To determine the view's size once rendered, use the rect or size properties.

A view does not have a default z-index value, meaning that it is undefined by default. When this property is explicitly set, regardless of its value, it causes the view to be positioned in front of any sibling that has an undefined z-index.

Defaults to undefined.