CODEWITHSUNDEEP
csstextbox
Balaji
Balaji

Reputation: 2189

Disable a textbox using CSS

How to disable a textbox in CSS? Currently we are having a textbox in our view which can be enabled/disabled depending on a property in the model. We are having asp.net MVC view; depending on the value of the Model property we need to either render a textbox or readonly textbox. we were thinking of doing this by applying CSS to the view control. Has someone done this earlier?

Upvotes: 70

Views: 337403

Answers (9)

new Q Open Wid
new Q Open Wid

Reputation: 2283

&tl;dr: No, you can't disable a textbox using CSS.

pointer-events: none works but on IE the CSS property only works with IE 11 or higher, so it doesn't work everywhere on every browser. Except for that you cannot disable a textbox using CSS.

However you could disable a textbox in HTML like this: 

<input value="...." readonly />

But if the textbox is in a form and you want the value of the textbox to be not submitted, instead do this:

<input value="...." disabled />

So the difference between these two options for disabling a textbox is that disabled cannot allow you to submit the value of the input textbox but readonly does allow.

For more information on the difference between these two, see "What is the difference between disabled="disabled" and readonly="readonly".

Upvotes: 2

silentwarrior
silentwarrior

Reputation: 356

Another way is by making it readonly:

<input type="text" id="txtDis" readonly />

Upvotes: -2

GBU
GBU

Reputation: 324

Going further on Pekka's answer, I had a style "style1" on some of my textboxes. You can create a "style1[disabled]" so you style only the disabled textboxes using "style1" style:

.style1[disabled] { ... }

Worked ok on IE8.

Upvotes: 3

user1265335
user1265335

Reputation:

you can disable via css:

pointer-events: none;

Doesn't work everywhere though.

Upvotes: 82

Arun Banik
Arun Banik

Reputation: 470

Just try this.

<asp:TextBox ID="tb" onkeypress="javascript:return false;" width="50px" runat="server"></asp:TextBox>

This won't allow any characters to be entered inside the TextBox.

Upvotes: 1

Sampson
Sampson

Reputation: 268344

You can't disable anything with CSS, that's a functional-issue. CSS is meant for design-issues. You could give the impression of a textbox being disabled, by setting washed-out colors on it.

To actually disable the element, you should use the disabled boolean attribute:

<input type="text" name="lname" disabled />

Demo: http://jsfiddle.net/p6rja/

Or, if you like, you can set this via JavaScript:

document.forms['formName']['inputName'].disabled = true;​​​​

Demo: http://jsfiddle.net/655Su/

Keep in mind that disabled inputs won't pass their values through when you post data back to the server. If you want to hold the data, but disallow to directly edit it, you may be interested in setting it to readonly instead.

// Similar to <input value="Read-only" readonly>
document.forms['formName']['inputName'].readOnly = true;

Demo: http://jsfiddle.net/655Su/1/

This doesn't change the UI of the element, so you would need to do that yourself:

input[readonly] { 
    background: #CCC; 
    color: #333; 
    border: 1px solid #666 
}

You could also target any disabled element:

input[disabled] { /* styles */ }

Upvotes: 56

ravi tom
ravi tom

Reputation: 33

**just copy paste this code and run you can see the textbox disabled **

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
<title>Untitled Document</title> 

<style>.container{float:left;width:200px;height:25px;position:relative;}
       .container input{float:left;width:200px;height:25px;}
       .overlay{display:block;width:208px;position:absolute;top:0px;left:0px;height:32px;} 
</style>
 </head>
<body>
      <div class="container">
       <input type="text" value="[email protected]" />
       <div class="overlay">
        </div>
       </div> 
</body>
</html>

Upvotes: 0

Dustin Laine
Dustin Laine

Reputation: 38503

CSS cannot disable the textbox, you can however turn off display or visibility. 

display: none;
visibility: hidden;

Or you can also set the HTMLattribute:

disabled="disabled"

Upvotes: 63

Pekka
Pekka

Reputation: 449395

You can't disable a textbox in CSS. Disabling it is not a presentational task, you will have to do this in the HTML markup using the disabled attribute.

You may be able to put something together by putting the textbox underneath an absolutely positioned transparent element with z-index... But that's just silly, plus you would need a second HTML element anyway.

You can, however, style disabled text boxes (if that's what you mean) in CSS using

input[disabled] { ... }

from IE7 upwards and in all other major browsers.

Upvotes: 10

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