Display Masked Text in Material UI Multiline TextField and Retrieve Unmasked Text

Question

I'm utilizing the Material UI TextField component to create a multiline (text area) input for messages. My objective is to present a masked version of the text within the GUI while retaining the unmasked text value. This way, users perceive a masked input, but I can process the unmasked value as necessary.

Here's the code I have for the TextArea component:

import React, { useState, ChangeEvent } from "react";
import { TextField, Box } from "@mui/material";

// Mask utility function
export function mask(str: string): string {
  return str ? UNICODE_BULLET_CHARACTER.repeat(str.length) : str;
}

interface TextAreaProperties {
  minRows: number;
  maxRows: number;
  label: string;
  placeholder: string;
  required: boolean;
  onChange: (event: ChangeEvent<HTMLTextAreaElement>) => void;
  error: boolean;
  helperText: string;
  maxLength: number;
}

function TextArea({
  minRows,
  maxRows,
  label,
  placeholder,
  required,
  onChange,
  error,
  helperText,
  maxLength,
}: TextAreaProperties) {
  const [text, setText] = useState("");
  const [maskInput, setMaskInput] = useState(false);

  const handleChange = (event: ChangeEvent<HTMLTextAreaElement>) => {
    setText(event.target.value);
    onChange(event);
  };

  return (
    <TextField
      multiline
      label={label}
      minRows={minRows}
      maxRows={maxRows}
      placeholder={placeholder}
      required={required}
      onChange={handleChange}
      error={error}
      style={{ width: "60ch" }}
      inputProps={{ maxLength }}
      helperText={
        <Box component="span" display="flex" justifyContent="space-between">
          <span>{helperText}</span>
          <span>{`${text.length}/${maxLength}`}</span>
        </Box>
      }
      value={mask(text)}
    />
  );

Currently, the displayed text within the TextField component reflects the masked value. However, when I retrieve the value using event.target.value in the handleChange function, I acquire the masked text, complicating further processing.

How can I achieve displaying a masked string in the multiline TextField while still obtaining the unmasked value when necessary?

Answer Guidelines: I would greatly appreciate solutions that provide clear guidance on how to achieve this behavior using Material UI's TextField component and React, considering the multiline input requirement. Insights into best practices for masking and retrieving values in similar multiline text area scenarios would be highly valuable.

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 05 '23 at 11:36

Here's something that you can try, it's pretty superficial in accomplishing this, but you can try and fiddle around with it.

import * as React from "react";
import { TextField, Box, Typography } from "@mui/material";

const UNICODE_BULLET_CHARACTER = "\u2022";

// Mask utility function
export function mask(str: string): string {
  const s = str ? str.replaceAll(/[^\n]/gi, UNICODE_BULLET_CHARACTER) : str;
  return s;
}

interface TextAreaProperties {
  minRows: number;
  maxRows: number;
  label: string;
  placeholder: string;
  required: boolean;
  onChange: (event: React.ChangeEvent<HTMLTextAreaElement>) => void;
  error: boolean;
  helperText: string;
  maxLength: number;
}

export default function TextArea({
  minRows,
  maxRows,
  label,
  placeholder,
  required,
  onChange,
  error,
  helperText,
  maxLength
}: TextAreaProperties) {
  const [text, setText] = React.useState("");
  const [maskInput, setMaskInput] = React.useState("");

  const handleChange = (event: React.ChangeEvent<HTMLTextAreaElement>) => {
    setText(event.target.value);
    setMaskInput(mask(event.target.value));
  };

  return (
    <TextField
      multiline
      label={label}
      minRows={minRows}
      maxRows={maxRows}
      placeholder={placeholder}
      required={required}
      onChange={handleChange}
      error={error}
      style={{ maxWidth: "60ch", width: "60ch", maxHeight: "60ch", height: "60ch", color: "transparent" }}
      inputProps={{
        maxLength,
        sx: {
          color: "transparent",
          width: "0.2px !important",
          height: "20px !important",
          caretColor: "black"
        }
      }}
      InputProps={{
        startAdornment: (
          <Typography
          onClick={(event) => {event.target.nextSibling.focus();}}
            sx={{
              p: 0,
              m: 0,
              whiteSpace: "pre",
              fontWeight: "bold",
              fontSize: "1.5rem",
              lineHeight: 0.9,
              verticalAlign: "middle",
              display: "table-cell",
              color: "black",
              width: "inherit",
              wordBreak: "break-all",
              textOverflow: "clip",
              overflow: "hidden",
            }}
          >{`${maskInput}`}</Typography>
        )
      }}
      helperText={
        <Box component="span" display="flex" justifyContent="space-between">
          <span>{helperText}</span>
          <span>{`${text.length}/${maxLength}`}</span>
        </Box>
      }
      value={text}
    />
  );
}

Here's a Codesandbox link.

Display Masked Text in Material UI Multiline TextField and Retrieve Unmasked Text

1 Answers1