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TextBox

Supported Class GUI

A 2D user interface element that displays player-editable text.

34 Nova members · 7 modern Roblox members not implemented yet

Description

A TextBox allows the player to provide text input. It behaves similarly to a TextButton, except that a single TextBox can be put in focus by clicking, tapping, or gamepad selection. While in focus, the player can use a keyboard to change the Text property.

  • If there is no text, the PlaceholderText will be visible. This is useful prompting players of the kind or format of data they should input.
  • By default, the ClearTextOnFocus property is enabled and ensures there is no existing text when a TextBox is focused. This may not be desirable for text that should be editable by the player.
  • The MultiLine property allows players to enter multiple lines of text with newline characters (\n).

Focus State

It is possible to detect and change the focus state of a TextBox:

  • You can use CaptureFocus when a dialogue appears so that the player doesn't have to click on a TextBox when it becomes available; you can use ContextActionService.BindAction() to bind a certain key to focus a TextBox using this function. When a TextBox comes into focus, the Focused event fires.
  • You can detect if a certain TextBox is in focus by using IsFocused. Alternatively, UserInputService.GetFocusedTextBox() can be used to check if any TextBox is in focus.
  • When the player is done inputting text, the FocusLost event fires, indicating if the player pressed Enter to submit text along with the InputObject that caused the loss of focus. When using on-screen keyboards on mobile and console, ReturnPressedFromOnScreenKeyboard may also fire.
  • If some more important matter comes up during gameplay, you can ReleaseFocus of the TextBox so that a player's keyboard input returns to your game.

Text Editing

A TextBox supports text selection through its CursorPosition and SelectionStart properties. Using GetPropertyChangedSignal, you can detect when a selection changes. Additionally, it is possible for players to copy and paste text within a TextBox, enabling basic clipboard support. When the cursor moves outside the visible area while typing or navigating, the TextBox automatically scrolls its viewport to keep the cursor in view.

Text Filtering Notice Games that facilitate player-to-player communication using text, such as custom chat or nametags, must properly filter such text using TextService.FilterStringAsync() or Chat.FilterStringAsync(). If this is not properly done, your game may receive moderation action.

Inheritance

Object → Instance → GuiBase → GuiBase2d → GuiObject → TextBox

Nova inheritance: Instance → GuiBase → GuiBase2d → GuiObject → TextBox

Properties

ClearTextOnFocus Supported Property Determines whether clicking on the TextBox will clear its TextBox.Text property.
ClearTextOnFocus: bool

Determines whether clicking on the TextBox will clear its TextBox.Text property

Roblox documentation

ContentText Supported Property A copy of TextBox.Text that contains exactly what is being rendered by the TextBox.
ContentText: string

A copy of TextBox.Text that contains exactly what is being rendered by the TextBox.

This property provides a copy of Text that contains exactly what is being rendered by the TextBox. This is useful for eliminating style tags used for rich text markup; for example, when RichText is enabled, the ContentText property shows the text as it appears to the user.

RichText Text ContentText
false <b>Hello,<br/> world!</b> <b>Hello,<br/> world!</b>
true <b>Hello,<br/> world!</b> Hello,
world!

Roblox documentation

CursorPosition Supported Property Determines the offset of the text cursor in bytes, or -1 if there is no cursor.
CursorPosition: int

Determines the offset of the text cursor in bytes, or -1 if there is no cursor.

This property determines the offset of the text cursor in bytes, or -1 if the TextBox is not currently being edited. A value of 1 represents the position before the first byte in the Text property. When used in conjunction with the SelectionStart property, it is possible to both get and set selected text within a TextBox.

Note that the units of this property are bytes and that many unicode characters such as emoji are longer than 1 byte. For instance, if a player types in "Hello👋" ("Hello" immediately followed by the waving hand sign), the cursor position would be 10, not 7, since the emoji uses 4 bytes.

Roblox documentation

Font Supported Property Determines the font used to render text.
Font: Font

Determines the font used to render text.

This property selects one of several pre-defined Font fonts with which the UI element will render its text. Some fonts have bold, italic, and/or light variants.

This property is kept in sync with the TextBox.FontFace property. When setting Font, the FontFace property will be set to Font.fromEnum(value).

Roblox documentation

FontFace Supported Property Determines the font face used to render text.
FontFace: Font

Determines the font face used to render text.

This property is similar to the Font property but allows setting fonts that don't exist in Font.

This property is kept in sync with the TextBox.Font property. When setting FontFace, the Font property is set to the corresponding enum value, or to Font.Unknown if there are no matches.

Roblox documentation

FontSize Supported Property Deprecated Determines the font size of a TextBox object.
FontSize: FontSize

This property determines the font size of a TextBox object.

Roblox documentation

LineHeight Supported Property Scales the spacing between lines of text in the TextBox.
LineHeight: float

Scales the spacing between lines of text in the TextBox.

Controls the height of lines, as a multiple of the font's em square size, by scaling the spacing between lines of text in the TextBox. Valid values range from 1.0 (default) to 3.0.

Roblox documentation

MaxVisibleGraphemes Supported Property The maximum number of graphemes the TextBox can show.
MaxVisibleGraphemes: int

The maximum number of graphemes the TextBox can show.

This property controls the maximum number of graphemes (or units of text) that are shown on the TextBox, regardless of whether it's showing the PlaceholderText or Text.

Changing the property does not change the position or size of the visible graphemes; the layout will be calculated as if all graphemes are visible.

Setting the property to -1 disables the limit and shows the entirety of the Text.

Roblox documentation

MultiLine Supported Property When set to true, text inside a TextBox is able to move onto multiple lines.
MultiLine: bool

When set to true, text inside a TextBox is able to move onto multiple lines. This also enables players to use the Enter key to move onto a new line.

Roblox documentation

PlaceholderColor3 Supported Property Sets the text color that gets used when no text has been entered into the TextBox.
PlaceholderColor3: Color3

Sets the text color that gets used when no text has been entered into the TextBox.

Roblox documentation

PlaceholderText Supported Property Sets the text that gets displayed when no text has been entered into the TextBox.
PlaceholderText: string

Sets the text that gets displayed when no text has been entered into the TextBox.

Roblox documentation

RichText Supported Property Determines whether the TextBox renders the Text string using rich text formatting.
RichText: bool

This property determines whether the TextBox renders the Text string using rich text formatting. Rich text uses simple markup tags to style sections of the string in bold, italics, specific colors, and more.

Note that when the TextBox has this property enabled and the box gains focus, the player will be able to edit and interact with the complete XML string, including all of the formatting tags. When focus is lost, the text will automatically parse and render the tags as rich text.

Roblox documentation

SelectionStart Supported Property Determines the starting position of a text selection.
SelectionStart: int

Determines the starting position of a text selection.

Determines the starting position of a text selection, or -1 if the TextBox has no range of selected text. This property uses the same positioning logic as CursorPosition. SelectionStart will be greater than CursorPosition if the cursor is at the beginning of a selection, and less than CursorPosition if the cursor is at the end.

Roblox documentation

Text Supported Property Determines the string rendered by the TextBox element.
Text: string

Determines the string rendered by the TextBox element.

This property determines the text content rendered by the TextBox element. The visual properties of the string rendered to the screen is determined by TextColor3, TextTransparency, TextSize, FontFace, and other properties.

It is possible to render emoji such as 👋 and other symbols. These special symbols aren't affected by the TextColor3 property.

This property may contain newline characters, but it is not possible to type newline characters within the Properties window. Similarly, this property may contain a tab character, but it will render as a space instead.

Roblox documentation

TextBounds Supported Property The size of a TextBox element's text in offsets.
TextBounds: Vector2

The size of a TextBox element's text in offsets.

This read-only property reflects the absolute size of rendered text in offsets. In other words, if you were to try to fit text into a rectangle, this property would reflect the minimum dimensions of the rectangle you would need in order to fit the text.

Using TextService.GetTextSize(), you can predict what TextBounds will be on a TextLabel given a string, Font, TextSize and frame size.

Roblox documentation

TextColor Supported Property Deprecated Deprecated. Use TextColor3 instead
TextColor: BrickColor

Deprecated. Use TextColor3 instead

Nova behaviour: Nova keeps this legacy member for compatibility. Roblox's modern deprecation wording may describe later Roblox behaviour; verify it against Nova before relying on the copied text.

Roblox documentation

TextColor3 Supported Property Determines the color of non-placeholder rendered text.
TextColor3: Color3

Determines the color of non-placeholder rendered text.

This property determines the color of non-placeholder text rendered by the TextBox. Text is rendered after the text stroke.

Roblox documentation

TextEditable Supported Property Determines whether the player can change the Text.
TextEditable: bool

Determines whether the player can change the Text.

This property determines whether the player can change the Text through input. It is recommended to disable ClearTextOnFocus when this property is disabled, otherwise the text can be cleared on-focus.

Roblox documentation

TextFits Supported Property Whether the text fits within the constraints of the TextBox.
TextFits: bool

Whether the text fits within the constraints of the TextBox.

Roblox documentation

TextScaled Supported Property Changes whether text is resized to fit within the TextBox.
TextScaled: bool

Changes whether text is resized to fit within the TextBox.

This property determines whether text is scaled so that it fills the box's entire space. When enabled, TextSize is ignored and TextWrapped is automatically enabled. When this property is used for on-screen UI, it may be helpful to use a UITextSizeConstraint to restrict the range of possible text sizes.

See TextLabel.TextScaled for additional recommendations when using this property.

Roblox documentation

TextSize Supported Property Determine the line height of text in offsets.
TextSize: float

Determine the line height of text in offsets.

This property determines the height in offsets of one line of rendered text. The unit is in offsets, not points as in many document editing programs.

Roblox documentation

TextStrokeColor3 Supported Property Determines the color of the text stroke (outline).
TextStrokeColor3: Color3

Determines the color of the text stroke (outline).

This property sets the color of the stroke (outline) of the rendered text. This property and TextStrokeTransparency determine the visual appearance of the text stroke.

Roblox documentation

TextStrokeTransparency Supported Property Determines the transparency of the text stroke (outline).
TextStrokeTransparency: float

Determines the transparency of the text stroke (outline).

This property sets the transparency of the stroke (outline) of the rendered text. This property and TextStrokeColor3 determine the visual appearance of the text stroke.

Since text stroke is simply multiple renderings of the same transparency, this property is essentially multiplicative on itself four times over; for example a TextStrokeTransparency of 0.5 appears about the same as TextTransparency of 0.0625, or 0.5^4.

Roblox documentation

TextTransparency Supported Property Determines the transparency of the rendered text.
TextTransparency: float

Determines the transparency of the rendered text.

This property determines the transparency of all the text rendered by the TextBox.

Roblox documentation

TextTruncate Supported Property Controls the truncation of the text displayed in the TextBox.
TextTruncate: TextTruncate

Controls the truncation of the text displayed in the TextBox.

Roblox documentation

TextWrap Supported Property Deprecated
TextWrap: bool

No description available.

Nova behaviour: Nova keeps this legacy member for compatibility. Roblox's modern deprecation wording may describe later Roblox behaviour; verify it against Nova before relying on the copied text.

Roblox documentation

TextWrapped Supported Property Determines if text wraps to multiple lines within the TextBox element space, truncating excess text.
TextWrapped: bool

Determines if text wraps to multiple lines within the TextBox element space, truncating excess text.

When enabled, this property will render text on multiple lines within a TextBox element's space so that TextBounds will never exceed the GuiBase2d.AbsoluteSize of the element.

This is achieved by breaking long lines of text into multiple lines. Line breaks will prefer whitespace; should a long unbroken word exceed the width of the element, that word will be broken into multiple lines.

If further line breaks would cause the vertical height of the text (the Y component of TextBox.TextBounds) to exceed the vertical height of the element (the Y component of GuiBase2d.AbsoluteSize), then that line will not be rendered at all.

Roblox documentation

TextXAlignment Supported Property Determines the horizontal alignment of the rendered text.
TextXAlignment: TextXAlignment

Determines the horizontal alignment of the rendered text.

This property determines the horizontal alignment of text rendered within the TextBox element's space. It can be used in conjunction with TextYAlignment to fully determine text alignment on both axes.

This property does not affect the read-only properties TextBounds and TextFits.

Roblox documentation

TextYAlignment Supported Property Determines the vertical alignment of the rendered text.
TextYAlignment: TextYAlignment

Determines the vertical alignment of the rendered text.

This property determines the vertical alignment of text rendered within the TextBox element's space. It can be used in conjunction with TextXAlignment to fully determine text alignment on both axes.

This property does not affect the read-only properties TextBounds and TextFits.

Roblox documentation

Methods

CaptureFocus Supported Function Forces the client to focus on the TextBox.
TextBox:CaptureFocus()

Forces the client to focus on the TextBox.

Roblox reference signature
TextBox:CaptureFocus(): null

Roblox documentation

IsFocused Supported Function Whether the TextBox currently has focus.
TextBox:IsFocused(): bool

Whether the TextBox currently has focus.

Returns true if the TextBox is focused or false if it is not.

Roblox documentation

ReleaseFocus Supported Function Forces the client to unfocus the TextBox.
TextBox:ReleaseFocus()

Forces the client to unfocus the TextBox.

Forces the client to unfocus the TextBox. The submitted parameter lets you override the enterPressed parameter in the TextBox.FocusLost event.

Roblox reference signature
TextBox:ReleaseFocus(submitted: bool = false): null

Roblox documentation

Events

Focused Supported Event Fires when the TextBox gains focus.
Focused()

Fires when the TextBox gains focus.

This event fires when the TextBox gains focus, typically when a player clicks/taps on the TextBox to begin text entry. Also fires if TextBox focus is forced through CaptureFocus().

This event can be used alongside FocusLost to track when a TextBox both gains and loses focus.

Roblox documentation

FocusLost Supported Event Fires when the TextBox loses its focus.
FocusLost(bool enterPressed, Instance inputThatCausedFocusLoss)

Fires when the TextBox loses its focus.

This event fires when the TextBox loses its focus, typically when a player clicks/taps outside of it or presses Enter. Also fires if TextBox focus release is forced through ReleaseFocus().

This event can be used alongside FocusLost to track when a TextBox both gains and loses focus.

Roblox reference signature
FocusLost(enterPressed: bool, inputThatCausedFocusLoss: InputObject)

Roblox documentation

Inherited members

Inherited from GuiObject: 45 properties, 39 methods, 25 events. They are documented on the base class page.

7 modern Roblox member(s) are not implemented yet — expand to inspect

Members declared by Roblox's TextBox class (or by a missing base class) that Nova does not expose. Use this list to scope a migration; the compatibility guide has the recommended workaround.

Properties

Member Signature Status Notes Flags
OpenTypeFeatures OpenTypeFeatures: string Not yet Applies OpenType typographic features to the text rendered by the TextBox. —
OpenTypeFeaturesError OpenTypeFeaturesError: string Not yet Read-only property that describes why the TextBox.OpenTypeFeatures string could not be applied. ReadOnly, NotReplicated
ShowNativeInput ShowNativeInput: bool Not yet If set to true, input native to the platform is used instead of Roblox's built-in keyboard. —
TextDirection TextDirection: TextDirection Not yet Direction in which the text is rendered. —

Methods

Member Signature Status Notes Flags
ResetKeyboardMode TextBox:ResetKeyboardMode(): null Not yet — RobloxScriptSecurity
SetTextFromInput TextBox:SetTextFromInput(text: string): null Not yet — RobloxScriptSecurity

Events

Member Signature Status Notes Flags
ReturnPressedFromOnScreenKeyboard ReturnPressedFromOnScreenKeyboard() Not yet Fires when the TextBox is focused and the player presses the on-screen keyboard's return/enter button. —

Roblox reference: TextBox

Generated from Nova's API dump and Roblox creator-docs. Nova-only members come from the engine's reflection metadata.