Experiments in <textarea> Automation

These are a collection of various experiments written in the development of my own "paste-bin service", with efforts to improve the interactive behaviors of the basic <textarea> to potential suitability for developers wanting to quickly share short, but formatted, code snippets.

Without ripping their hair out because they can't get rid of global extraneous indentation.

For any given technique with multiple proivded approaches or examples, each will be given with its own set of pros and cons clearly listed. Ultimately reasons why you might choose one over the other. Syntax highlighting, regular expression-based search and replace, or other more advanced "programmers' editor" features are not planned for inclusion. Only the basic necessities.

Content-Aware Sizing

Line-Based Automatic Sizing (With Optional Constraints)

The most basic technique, and most logically precice, by dynamically adjusting the rows attribute of the element to precicely define height in terms of lines of text. Unable to handle soft–wrappd text.

"Scrollable Region" Automatic Sizing (With Optional Constraints & Animation)

Utilizing the metrics for the content of the scrollable region, match the height of the scrollable region to the possible scrollable area. Where the above techniqe can not handle soft–wrapped lines, this can, however definitions by pixel height are less natral.

Tab Character Input & Indentation

Permitting Entry of Literal Tabs

It can be desireable to permit entry of literal tab characters into text entry boxes, though this breaks tab-based accessible navigation of the page elements.

Bulk Increase and Decrease of Indentation Level

An extremely common pattern in virtually all "programmers' text editors" is that of management of indentation level.

Indentation-Matching on Enter (With Occasional Variation)

When writing code, it's fairly expected to match any existing indentation on the last line on the newly created one.

Miscellaneous Behaviors

Pure CSS Approaches to Image Placeholders

Under casual searches, there are many implementations of this desired design pattern, often for the wrong reasons, or not actually implementing what is written on the label.