Avoid textarea content overlapping with overlay box at the bottom - html

Question

I'm trying to add an overlay box at the bottom of a textarea. Positioning the overlay box was easy, but now I want the textarea content to never overlap the overlay box.
My first approach was adding padding-bottom so that the text never reaches the bottom of the textarea, where the overlay box is placed. However, as I type, the text will go under it. Also, scrolling up will cause the same undesired behavior.
Edit:
In response to some of the answers that partially solve my issue. I'm trying to make the textarea look as native as possible, so border color changing on focus would be necessary as well.
.container {
position: relative;
width: 110px;
}
textarea {
width: 100%;
height: 50px;
resize: none;
}
texarea.with-padding {
padding-bottom: 1em;
}
span {
position: absolute;
bottom: 5px;
width: 100%;
height: 1em;
background: rgba(255,0,0,0.5);
}
<div class="container">
<textarea name="" id="">I want this to never go under the red box.</textarea>
<span></span>
</div>
<div class="container">
<textarea class="with-padding" name="" id="">I tried with padding-bottom, but it doesn't work either.</textarea>
<span></span>
</div>

Answer 1

You can use a <div> container (which holds your textarea and overlay) as a fake border and remove the border of textarea. Just as shown in the snippet below:
$('textarea').on('focus', function() {
$('.textarea-holder').css('border-color', 'rgba(255, 0, 0, 0.5)');
});
$('textarea').on('blur', function() {
$('.textarea-holder').css('border-color', '#333');
});
.textarea-holder {
border: 1px solid #333;
display: inline-block;
}
.textarea-holder textarea {
display: block;
resize: none;
border: none;
}
textarea:focus {
outline: none;
}
.textarea-holder .overlay {
width: 100%;
height: 20px;
background: rgba(255, 0, 0, 0.5);
}
body {
padding: 20px;
}
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<div class="textarea-holder">
<textarea rows="6"></textarea>
<div class="overlay"></div>
</div>
Hope this helps!

Answer 2

You can simply add a bottom-border: 1em to the textarea to imitate the span element.
Here is a working example: http://codepen.io/anon/pen/woKyvy#anon-login
.container {
position: relative;
width: 200px;
}
textarea {
width: 100%;
height: 50px;
border-bottom: 1em solid rgba(255,0,0,0.5);
}
<div class="container">
<textarea>Try typing. The cursor will never end up under the red line.</textarea>
</div>

Answer 3

So I went ahead and wrote it down:
Removed the border and reset some styles of textarea
Added the fake border to the container and removed the positioning of the span and made it a block element.
See code below:
.container {
position: relative;
width: 110px;
border: 1px solid;
}
textarea {
width: 100%;
height: 50px;
resize: none;
border:none;
outline:none;
padding: 0;
}
.container span {
display:block;
width: 100%;
height: 1em;
background: rgba(255, 0, 0, 0.5);
}
<div class="container">
<textarea name="" id="">I want this to never go under the red box.</textarea>
<span></span>
</div>

Answer 4

I finally found a solution to this riddle thanks to Saurav Rastogi's and eyetea's answers. Both were almost perfect, but failed to make the textarea have its border highlighted on focus. I've managed to keep this behavior using outline.
I think both approaches are useful as they allow for two different border highlight on focus. One leaving the overlay outside, using a div wrapper strategy, and the one leaving it inside, using a very thick border-bottom.
/* Inner border on focus solution */
.textarea-wrapper {
border: 1px solid gray;
display: inline-block;
}
.textarea-wrapper textarea {
display: block;
border: none;
}
.textarea-wrapper textarea:focus {
outline: 1px solid green;
outline-offset: 0;
}
.textarea-wrapper .overlay {
width: 100%;
height: 20px;
background: rgba(255, 0, 0, 0.5);
}
/* Outer border on focus solution */
textarea.bottom-padded {
border-bottom: 21px solid rgba(255,0,0,0.5);
outline: 1px solid gray;
outline-offset: -1px;
}
textarea.bottom-padded:focus {
outline-color: green !important;
}
<div class="textarea-wrapper">
<textarea rows="3">Inner border on focus</textarea>
<div class="overlay"></div>
</div>
<textarea rows="3" class="bottom-padded">Outer border on focus</textarea>