Hi I have a characeter counter for a text area. My problem is that it doesn't count spaces or linebreaks. How do I make it so that it does so?

   <div class="controls">

   <textarea rows="4" cols="50"  maxlength="1500" data-ng-minLength="1" data-ng  
    model="createprofilefields.description" required highlight-on-
    error></textarea>

    <br />

<!--counter-->
  <span class="form-help">{{1500-createprofilefields.description.length}}         
   Characters</span>

    </div>

It's because angularJS automatically trimmed your model.

If you're using angularJS 1.1.1 or newer, add ng-trim="false" to textarea.

Working example: http://jsfiddle.net/9DbYY/


With Angular, textarea has an optional argument called ngTrim. According to the Angular textarea page:

If set to false Angular will not automatically trim the input. (default: true)

Usage:

<textarea
  ng-model="string"
  [ng-trim="boolean"]>
...
</textarea>

The following code shows how to use ngTrim in order to prevent Angular to trim the input:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en" ng-app="">

<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <title>Character count</title>
    <script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.5.5/angular.min.js"></script>
</head>

<body>
    <textarea ng-trim="false" ng-model="countmodel"></textarea>
    <p>{{15 - countmodel.length}} left</p>
</body>

</html>

Note that input[text] has the same optional ngTrim argument (Angular input page).


Create a directive named charCount

.directive('charCount', ['$log', '$timeout', function($log, $timeout){
    return {
        restrict: 'A',
        compile: function compile()
        {
            return {
                post: function postLink(scope, iElement, iAttrs)
                {
                    iElement.bind('keydown', function()
                    {
                        scope.$apply(function()
                        {
                            scope.numberOfCharacters = iElement.val().length;
                        });
                    });
                    iElement.bind('paste', function()
                    {
                        $timeout(function ()
                        {
                            scope.$apply(function()
                            {
                                scope.numberOfCharacters = iElement.val().length;
                            });
                        }, 200);
                    });
                }
            }
        }
    }
}])

In your HTML call the directive char-count and access variable numberOfCharacters

<textarea
        ng-model="text"
        ng-required="true"
        char-count></textarea>
Number of Characters: {{ numberOfCharacters }}<br>