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PaulDeHorn's avatar
PaulDeHorn
Community Member
8 years ago

Change Text Entry Variable without control losing focus?

Does anyone know of a way to change a text entry variable without control losing focus first? I'm simulating software behavior where as soon as a number is typed a description appears. Currently, I have the user press Tab as a work around but this is not exactly how the software functions.

  • Hey Curtis and to anyone else who finds themselves here. 

    The code below detects when anyone types into any number of text input boxes on a Storyline slide. Whenever a key is pressed the text boxes lose focus for a millisecond and trigger the relevant 'lose focus' trigger in Storyline.

    The 'console.log' line can be omitted from the code. If you keep it in, a message is displayed in the browser for testing purposes.

    Array.from(document.querySelectorAll('.acc-textinput')).forEach(el => {
        el.addEventListener('keyup', () => {
            console.log('someone is typing in a box...');
            el.blur();
            el.focus();
        })
    });

    A Storyline file is attached to demonstrate. Simply publish to HTML (web) or SCORM. 

  • Hello! Does anyone know if there's some way to make this code work if there are multiple text input fields? If I have 4 text input fields, for example, it only seems to listen to the first one.

  • JillianRae's avatar
    JillianRae
    Community Member

    I thought I'd put this here in case anybody finds it useful. This problem was driving me crazy and I didn't like any of the suggested solutions. I solved it using jQuery because I'm still using Storyline 3, but I'm sure you could achieve the same thing in a slightly more long-winded way with straight javascript.

    I created an Execute JavaScript trigger to run at timeline start:

    $(function() {
      $("input").keyup(function() {
        $(this).blur();
        $(this).focus();
      });
    });

    Basically it causes the active input element to lose focus very briefly after every keystroke, thereby activating the "control loses focus" trigger, to which you can attach any action you like on a case-by-case basis. In theory the split second loss of focus could cause problems but in practice I have yet to experience any.

    Because it works on any unspecified input element you can also put it inside your Slide Master to apply to every slide.

    • GavinElliott-89's avatar
      GavinElliott-89
      Community Member

      Jillian, you are a life saver. This was also driving me crazy until I came across your post. Thank you so much.

      The jQuery didn't work for me for some reason, so I used standard JavaScript. It's below if anyone else needs it.

      The '.acc-textinput' is the class name of the text input box in the Storyline module. I'm assuming this is always the same, but if Articulate ever change the name in the future this code won't work.

      document.querySelector('.acc-textinput').addEventListener('keyup', () => {
      document.querySelector('.acc-textinput').blur();
      document.querySelector('.acc-textinput').focus();
      });
      • dougofakkad's avatar
        dougofakkad
        Community Member

        Hello,

        On the offchance anyone in this thread is still following, I can't get any of the examples in this thread to work in Storyline 3.93. I was specifically trying non-JQuery methods, but I don't know if something has changed in the way Storyline references objects that I'm not spotting. I've tried the class name as detailed here and "[data-acc-text='*****']" to get the accessibility name.

  • Hi Garfield,

    I haven't seen any other solutions for this - the text entry is waiting for the user to click outside or onto something else to confirm that they're done typing and continue on. 

    It may be something that you could setup using Javascript - so I'd suggest searching ELH for examples using that, or post a new discussion specifically asking for ideas! It's well above my head, so sadly I'm not much help there. 🙃