javascript/react dynamic height textarea (stop at a max)

Question

What I'm trying to achieve is a textarea that starts out as a single line but will grow up to 4 lines and at that point start to scroll if the user continues to type. I have a partial solution kinda working, it grows and then stops when it hits the max, but if you delete text it doesn't shrink like I want it to.

This is what I have so far.

export class foo extends React.Component {
  constructor(props) {
    super(props);
    this.state = {
      textareaHeight: 38
    };
  }

  handleKeyUp(evt) {
    // Max: 75px Min: 38px
    let newHeight = Math.max(Math.min(evt.target.scrollHeight + 2, 75), 38);
    if (newHeight !== this.state.textareaHeight) {
      this.setState({
        textareaHeight: newHeight
      });
    }
  }

  render() {
    let textareaStyle = { height: this.state.textareaHeight };
    return (
      <div>
        <textarea onKeyUp={this.handleKeyUp.bind(this)} style={textareaStyle}/>
      </div>
    );
  }
}

Obviously the problem is scrollHeight doesn't shrink back down when height is set to something larger. Any suggestion for how I might be able to fix this so it will also shrink back down if text is deleted?

Answer 1

ANOTHER SIMPLE APPROACH (without an additional package)

export class foo extends React.Component {
  handleKeyDown(e) {
    e.target.style.height = 'inherit';
    e.target.style.height = `${e.target.scrollHeight}px`; 
    // In case you have a limitation
    // e.target.style.height = `${Math.min(e.target.scrollHeight, limit)}px`;
  }

  render() {
    return <textarea onKeyDown={this.handleKeyDown} />;
  }
}

The problem when you delete the text and textarea doesn't shrink back is because you forget to set this line

e.target.style.height = 'inherit';

Consider using onKeyDown because it works for all keys while others may not (w3schools)

In case you have padding or border of top or bottom. (reference)

handleKeyDown(e) {
    // Reset field height
    e.target.style.height = 'inherit';

    // Get the computed styles for the element
    const computed = window.getComputedStyle(e.target);

    // Calculate the height
    const height = parseInt(computed.getPropertyValue('border-top-width'), 10)
                 + parseInt(computed.getPropertyValue('padding-top'), 10)
                 + e.target.scrollHeight
                 + parseInt(computed.getPropertyValue('padding-bottom'), 10)
                 + parseInt(computed.getPropertyValue('border-bottom-width'), 10);

    e.target.style.height = `${height}px`;
}

I hope this may help.