Textarea in salt

Question

Hi!

In salt, it is cumbersome to mimic textarea.

My current attempt is something like:

{+
   This is a long
   text in a textarea
   .
   "                         "
}


Note the dot to fill up vertical space. And also the last line of space to make the area wider.

Is there an easier way to achieve this?

Answer 1

If you're happy to always have at least one blank line, you could define some spacer variables to use.  Note that using a monospaced font lets you control the width much better:

@startsalt
!$pad40="<font:monospaced>                                        </font>"

{+
   This is a long
   text in a textarea
   $pad40
}
@endsalt

If you have lots of different widths, you could use a macro to generate a specific width spacing line on demand:

@startsalt
!function $pad($width)
  !$spaces=""
  !while %strlen($spaces) <= $width
    !$spaces=$spaces+" "
  !endwhile
  !return "<font:monospaced>"+$spaces+"</font>"
!endfunction

{+
   This is a long
   text in a textarea
   $pad(40)
}
@endsalt

Before I came up with that, I experimented with a macro to pad out strings to a set length, so I'll include that too.  The advantage is that there's no need for a blank line.  The disadvantage is that you either use monospaced font throughout or you use lose precise control over the width.

(click diagram for source)