How to programmatically focus a TextField?

[mewben]

StackOverflow: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37949394/how-to-set-focus-to-a-materialui-textfield/44587705#44587705

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I have this textfield:

<TextField ref="item" />

I want to focus this textfield when I click a button. I have this

React.findDOMNode(this.refs.item).focus();

but it doesn't work.

I tried using a simple <input type="text" ref="item" /> and there's no problem with it.

Please help.

[oliviertassinari]

Should be working https://github.com/callemall/material-ui/blob/master/src/text-field.jsx#L336.
Use

this.refs.item.focus()

[mewben]

Perfect! Thank you very much @oliviertassinari

[rkstar]

just updating the source link in this issue for anyone who might find this.

focusNameInputField(){
  this.refs.nameInputField.focus()
}

render(){
  return <TextField ref='nameInputField' />
}

https://github.com/callemall/material-ui/blob/master/src/TextField/TextField.js#L330

[ydeshayes]

For those who want to use it in a pure component :

...
const focusNameInputField = ref => {
  ref.input.refs.input.focus();
};

return (<TextField ref={focusNameInputField} />);
...

[dogrocker]

This's work too.

const focusUsernameInputField = input => {
  if (input) {
    input.focus();
  }
};

return <TextField inputRef={focusUsernameInputField} />

[bchenSyd]

@ydeshayes @dogrocker can you please elaborate on what you mean by 'pure' component? is stateless component what you mean?
I thought we can't use ref within stateless component ????

[bchenSyd]

btw, this.refs.item returns your the underlying react component,AKA backing instance;
React.findDOMNode(this.refs.item) return you the rendered DOM node.

if your component is a html element, they are interchangeable
http://www.webpackbin.com/E1txGgfff

[ffxsam]

Best not to use string refs anymore. ref callback is the way to go.

[ffxsam]

2 options

<TextField autoFocus />

2. If you have to put a slight time delay in to get the focus to happen.

function AutoFocusTextField(props) {
  const inputRef = React.useRef();

  React.useEffect(() => {
    const timeout = setTimeout(() => {
      inputRef.current.focus();
    }, 100);

    return () => {
      clearTimeout(timeout);
    };
  }, []);

  return <TextField inputRef={inputRef} {...props} />;
}

[lrettig]

I couldn't get this to work without the setTimeout, for some reason. Slight typo in the above code fixed here:

const focusUsernameInputField = input => {
  if (input) {
    setTimeout(() => {input.focus()}, 100);
  }
};

[saadtazi]

I was not able to use the proposed solution with material-ui v1. So I ended up doing this, which is ugly... but works...