Why I (mostly) Stopped Using input type="number"

I added type="number" to my admin panel years ago and never questioned it—until it caused a real bug.

While merging entities by ID, the value changed accidentally (instead 749 it became 750 - likely due to mouse wheel scroll), and I merged into the wrong record.

The issue

Most “numbers” in admin UIs aren’t really numbers:

• IDs
• Dates (day of month)
• Budget fields
• Codes

They’re not meant to be incremented.

But type="number":

• Changes on scroll / arrow keys
• Accepts weird values (e, +, etc.)
• Behaves inconsistently across browsers
• Can silently break validation

What I use instead

<input type="text" inputmode="numeric" pattern="[0-9]*">

Same mobile UX, no surprises, full control.

TL;DR

Use type="number" only for real, incrementable values (like quantity).

For everything else (IDs, etc.) → use type="text" with inputmode="numeric".