Character Limiter

Been patiently waiting for an update to the Text Input component to include a character limiter. As a text based (short form) content creation platform, I desperately need it and have had to implement clunky Sheets formulas truncating text over a certain limit and weird warning messages on content pages only viewable after they’ve posted, alerting them that they need to re-edit. Last winter, I mentioned it here. And it’s still odd to me that it wouldn’t be an option, given that it’s a standard feature across forms all over the internet, has been part of HTML since it’s earliest days, and would provide developers with a way to cut down on the amount of content being stored in their sheets (which is important given Sheets’ limitations on number of rows/amount of content).

And then I noticed a similar limiter introduced on the number input component, and was thinking… “really? And still no limiter on Text Component?” I can’t believe I’m actually considering building a form on my own website accessible through Webview for the sole purpose of having a proper character limiter. @david, @Mark, @JackVaughan is this anywhere in the near-term pipeline? I make random feature requests here all the time, but if I could press a button and have any of them right now It would be this one in :clap: a :clap: heartbeat :clap: !

(and I‘m mostly speaking up about this cause it’s been so long since I last mentioned it and because I’ve been asked in the past how you can make Glide better or what you could build to help us with our current apps?)

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Could not agree more! This is high on my list of issues that “seem” small but cause daily pain and quite frankly, make us look like amateurs with our users (and I truly do not mean any disrespect, it’s just the state of the situation)! Especially where there are text components that don’t wrap and then on top of that, no way to solve by limiting character input so you have the ellipses that do nothing. We need text wrapping on Headers & Titles, at least 2-3 lines, plus character limitation PLEASE. Given the magnitude of text component usage in apps, I think a comprehensive review and fix is in order. :upside_down_face: :roll_eyes: :pray:t2:

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Yes, several text display components don’t wrap, and it would be nice if they at least wrapped for a line or two. But the fact that they don’t, means that the devs consider those text displays only meant for titles or sub-headings… which are, by their very nature, short. So we need a way to force users into keeping certain text submissions short if they’re expected to display as titles, captions or sub-headings. And even if titles did wrap, I would still want to limit my user from choosing the username Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Sorry, but you can choose a shorter name, friend.

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Yes, totally agreed - to offer the most flexibility for configuring our apps, we need BOTH text wrapping option via check box as exists in some components/fields, AND character limitation. Was not suggesting one or the other! :+1:t2:

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Oh don’t get me wrong, I definitely want those text displays to wrap too! They’ve actually done a bit of work on that. The choice component used to show truncated text options, and now it seems that longer text wraps, which is SOOOO nice, and would be so welcomed for other text displays throughout the app (eg inside tiled inline lists).

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Here’s an example where we need text wrapping for Header & Title to take advantage of using half cards - Neither field wraps so look at these…I can’t properly display anything here…even a long name much less “Welcome New Colleague” because of this issue.

Make sure to adjust your lines of text setting.

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Thanks Jeff. Rookie mistake!!! :flushed: :crazy_face: :grin:

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