How to Change <Input Type="File"> Style

Styling an input type= file button

Styling file inputs are notoriously difficult, as most browsers will not change the appearance from either CSS or javascript.

Even the size of the input will not respond to the likes of:

<input type="file" style="width:200px">

Instead, you will need to use the size attribute:

<input type="file" size="60" />

For any styling more sophisticated than that (e.g. changing the look of the browse button) you will need to look at the tricksy approach of overlaying a styled button and input box on top of the native file input. The article already mentioned by rm at www.quirksmode.org/dom/inputfile.html is the best one I've seen.

UPDATE

Although it's difficult to style an <input> tag directly, this is easily possible with the help of a <label> tag. See answer below from @JoshCrozier: https://stackoverflow.com/a/25825731/10128619

How to customize input type= file ?

You can’t modify much about the input[type=file] control itself.

Since clicking a label element correctly paired with an input will activate/focus it, we can use a label to trigger the OS browse dialog.

Here is how you can do it…

label {   cursor: pointer;   /* Style as you please, it will become the visible UI component. */}
#upload-photo {   opacity: 0;   position: absolute;   z-index: -1;}

<label for="upload-photo">Browse...</label><input type="file" name="photo" id="upload-photo" />

Change default text in input type= file ?

Each browser has it's own rendition of the control and as such you can't change either the text or the orientation of the control.

There are some "kind of" hacks you may want to try if you want an html/css solution rather than a Flash or silverlightsolution.

http://www.quirksmode.org/dom/inputfile.html

http://www.shauninman.com/archive/2007/09/10/styling_file_inputs_with_css_and_the_dom

Personally, because most users stick to their browser of choice, and therefore are probably used to seeing the control in the default rendition, they'd probably get confused if they saw something different (depending on the types of users you're dealing with).

Styling of the input type file not working

We cannot do much customization of the file input. But you have options like below.

Note: I have used Bootstrap for some classes as your code is using it. But if you want you can have custom classes as well.

One disadvantage is that the select file information is also hidden. If you want that you can get that using JavaScript and show below the button.

input[type='file'] {
  width: 0;
  height: 0;
  overflow: hidden;
  opacity: 0;
}

<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.0.0/css/bootstrap.min.css" integrity="sha384-Gn5384xqQ1aoWXA+058RXPxPg6fy4IWvTNh0E263XmFcJlSAwiGgFAW/dAiS6JXm" crossorigin="anonymous">

<label>
  <input id="Image" type="file" class="form-control-image"         name="image_reference">
  <span class="btn btn-primary">File button</span>
</label>
<br />
<br />
<button class="btn btn-primary form-control-image">Submit</button>

Hide the browse button on a input type=file

No, what you can do is a (ugly) workaround, but largely used

Create a normal input and a image
Create file input with opacity 0
When the user click on the image, you simulate a click on the file input
When file input change, you pass it's value to the normal input (so user can see the path)

Here you can see a full explanation, along with code:

http://www.quirksmode.org/dom/inputfile.html

Vue - File input element's @change not triggered when its files are set using ref - drag and drop file upload

onChange event of input type files will not trigger on dropEnd.

Instead you have to modify your current onChange method. So that you use the same code for drop end.

Update your onFileSelect method like this:

onFileSelect(e) {
      console.log("came here");
      const file = e.target.files[0];

      uploadFile(file) // this method will be responsible for uploading file to server. Move all code written in onFileSelect to this method.
}

Now on DropEnd, simple call this method with file parameter.

onDrop(e) {
     uploadFile(e.dataTransfer.files[0])
    },

Second use of input file doesn't trigger onchange anymore

Thanks to codingrhythm for leading me on the right track.

What I did was to actually just add the on("change") call again on the field.

So I only altered the clearPictureAttachment() function (called when deleting a picture) to this:

function clearPictureAttachment(){
$("#image-message").attr('value', '');    
$("#image_message_file").attr('value', '');
$("#image_message_loading").hide();
$("#image_message_upload").show();
$("#image_message_preview").hide();
//reenable the onchange to upload a picture
$("#image-message").on('change', function () {
    $('#editor-photoarea').show();
    ajaxFileUploadMessagePicture();
});
}

Thanks again!