Spry

Customize the Validation Text Area widget

The SpryValidationTextarea.css file provides the default styling for the Validation Text Area widget. You can, however, customize the widget by changing the appropriate CSS rule. The CSS rules in the SpryValidationTextarea.css file use the same class names as the related elements in the widget’s HTML code, so it’s easy for you to know which CSS rules correspond to the widget and its error states.

The SpryValidationTextarea.css file should already be included in your website before you start customizing. For more information, see Prepare your files.

Style a Validation Text Area widget (general instructions)

  1. Open the SpryValidationTextarea.css file.
  2. Locate the CSS rule for the part of the widget to change. For example, to change the background color of the Text Area widget’s required state, edit the textareaRequiredState rule in the SpryValidationTextarea.css file.
  3. Make your changes to the CSS rule and save the file.

The SpryValidationTextarea.css file contains extensive comments, explaining the code and the purpose for certain rules. For further information, see the comments in the file.

Style Validation Text Area widget error message text

By default, error messages for the Validation Text Area widget appear in red with a 1-pixel solid border surrounding the text.

 To change the text styling of Validation Text Area widget error messages, use the following table to locate the appropriate CSS rule, and then change the default properties, or add your own text styling properties and values.

Text to change

Relevant CSS rule

Relevant properties to change

Error message text

.textareaRequiredState .textareaRequiredMsg, .textareaMinCharsState .textareaMinCharsMsg, .textareaMaxCharsState .textareaMaxCharsMsg

color: #CC3333; border: 1px solid #CC3333;

Change Validation Text Area widget background colors

 To change the background colors of the Validation Text Area widget in various states, use the following table to locate the appropriate CSS rule, and then change the default background color values.

Background color to change

Relevant CSS rule

Relevant property to change

Background color of widget in valid state

.textareaValidState textarea, textarea.textareaValidState

background-color: #B8F5B1;

Background color of widget in invalid state

textarea.textareaRequiredState, .textareaRequiredState textarea, textarea.textareaMinCharsState, .textareaMinCharsState textarea, textarea.textareaMaxCharsState, .textareaMaxCharsState textarea

background-color: #FF9F9F;

Background color of widget in focus

.textareaFocusState textarea, textarea.textareaFocusState

background-color: #FFFFCC;

Customize state-related class names

While you can replace error message-related class names with class names of your own by changing the rules in the CSS and the class names in the HTML code, you cannot change or replace state-related class names, because the behaviors are hard-coded as part of the Spry framework. You can, however, override the default state-related class name with your own class name by specifying a new value in the third parameter of the widget constructor.

 To change widget state-related class names, add one of the overriding options to the third parameter of the widget constructor, and specify your custom class name, as follows: 
<script type="text/javascript">
	var ta1 = new Spry.Widget.ValidationTextarea("sprytextarea1", {requiredClass:"required"});
</script>

The following table provides a list of options you can use to override built-in state-related class names.

Option

Description

requiredClass

Overrides the "textareaRequiredState" built-in value

validClass

Overrides the "textareaValidState" built-in value

focusClass

Overrides the "textareaFocusState" built-in value

invalidCharsMinClass

Overrides the "textareaMinCharsState" built-in value

invalidCharsMaxClass

Overrides the "textareaMaxCharsState" built-in value

textareaFlashTextClass

Overrides the "textareaFlashText" built-in value