Unfocus a TextInput in React Native

Question

I\'m building an Android app with React Native.

How can you force a TextInput to \"unFocus\", meaning the cursor is blinking inside the text field. The

Answer 1

My use case was a little different. The user wouldn't enter a value directly in the input field. The field was mainly used to capture the user's attempt at entering a value and open a modal instead. I wanted to blur the field after the modal closed to reduce the extra tap the user would have to do later.

If using Hooks, you can do something as simple as

const inputRef = useRef(null);

<Input
  ref={inputRef}
  {...props}
/>

Then just call this anywhere you need it.

inputRef.current.blur();

Answer 2

A better way is to use ScrollView and Keyboard.dismiss. By using ScrollView when the user taps outside of textInput, keyboard dismissed. It's done because ScrollView default property for keyboardShouldPersistTaps is never. It's the behavior the user expects. For dismiss the keyboard, or it's equivalent blur the textInput, when the user tap on the login button add Keyboard.dismissed() to the tryLogin function.

import React, {Component} from 'react';
import { AppRegistry, Text, View, StyleSheet, TextInput, TouchableOpacity, ScrollView, Keyboard}
  from 'react-native';
var SHA256 = require("crypto-js/sha256");

export default class LoginForm extends Component{


  constructor(props){
    super(props);
    this.state = {
      email: '',
      password:''
    };
  }

  tryLogin = () => {
    Keyboard.dismiss();
    if(this.state.email=="email123" && this.state.password == "password"){
      console.log("password verified");
      this.props.navigator.replace({
        title: 'Dashboard'
      });
    }

    console.log(this.state.email);
    console.log(this.state.password);
    console.log("Hash" + SHA256(this.state.password));
  }

  render(){
    return(
      <ScrollView style={styles.container}>
        <TextInput
          style={styles.input}

          placeholder="Email address"
          placeholderTextColor="white"
          onChangeText={(email) => this.setState({email})}>
        </TextInput>
        <TextInput style={styles.input}
                   placeholder="Password"
                   placeholderTextColor="white"
                   secureTextEntry
                   onChangeText={(password) => this.setState({password})}>
        </TextInput>

        <TouchableOpacity style={styles.loginButtonContainer} onPress={this.tryLogin}>
          <Text style={styles.loginButtonText}>LOGIN</Text>
        </TouchableOpacity>
      </ScrollView>
    );
  }
}

AppRegistry.registerComponent('LoginForm', () => LoginForm);

const styles =  StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    padding: 20
  },
  input:{
    height: 40,
    backgroundColor: '#e74c3c',
    marginBottom: 20,
    color: 'white',
    paddingHorizontal: 15,
    opacity: .9
  },
  loginButtonContainer:{
    justifyContent: 'center',
    backgroundColor: '#bc4c3c',
    paddingVertical:15

  },
  loginButtonText:{
    textAlign:'center',
    color:'white',
    fontWeight: '700',
    fontSize: 24

  }

})

Answer 3

Noah's answer above works well, but using string refs is now discouraged in React, and is likely going to be deprecated soon. Instead, you should use a callback function that gets called when the component you want to reference renders.

<TextInput 
  ref={(c: any) => {
    this.textInputRef = c;
  }}
  onSubmitEditing={() => this.textInputRef.blur()} 
/>

If you're using Flow, you can then specify the type of your ref by placing something like this outside of your render function:

textInputRef: ?TextInput;

Answer 4

I managed to solve this with this.ref reference. First, you assign to the TextInput a ref, like this:

<input ref="myInput" />

Then, you call the blur() method to this.refs.myInput from a function

 blurTextInput(){
    this.refs.myInput.blur()
 }

Answer 5

Found it actually.It doesn't look as pretty and my intuition says this isn't a very "react" solution but if you want it here it is.

<TextInput 
 style={styles.input} 
 ref="email_input"
 onSubmitEditing={() => this.refs['email_input'].blur()} 
 placeholder="Email address" 
 placeholderTextColor="white"
 onChangeText={(email) => this.setState({email})}/>

Answer 6

You can use Keyboard API.

import { Keyboard, TextInput } from 'react-native';

<TextInput
  onSubmitEditing={Keyboard.dismiss}
/>

Please see the full example in react native offical document.