Localization of input type number
I work on a web application running in Chrome, where I have inputs with type number. In my locale commas are used for decimal numbers and a space is used for thousand separation (not that important), but when I enter these characters into a number field, they are simply removed, effectively increasing money amounts by a hundred.
I have set the language both in the browser settings and on the page, but I still need to use a period for decimals. Is there any way I can configure the field to accept commas?
Alternatively, I'll have to solve this using javascript. I guess I could handle the keydown event and change commas to periods as the user types, but that wouldn't give a great user experience, would it? So how can I acheive this with a minimal footprint in my code?
Answer
The HTML5 input type=number is inadequate from the localization point of view, due to both the definition and the implementations. It is meant to be localized but as per the locale of the browser, which you cannot set or even know as a designer/author.
On my Chrome, the input type=number step=0.001 accepts 1,2 (with comma) and sends it as 1.2 and it accepts 1.200 (with a period), visibly converting it to 1200 and sending as such. This is how things are meant to be, more or less, when the browser locale is Finnish. But it fails to accept 1 200 (which is standard way of writing 1200 in Finnish) and instead sends just the digit 1.
So it’s rather hopeless. Use whatever JavaScript widgets you can find, or a simple text input box. Anything is probably better than input type=number unless all users use browsers with the same locale and have the same expectations on the format of numbers.