PHP and text boxes

berbbrown

I have loads of php forms which customers have to type HTML (if they know it). Can anyone tell me if there is a HTML Toolbar around which I can use that offers features of inserting HTML tags into a text box rather than having to type them.

Any advice please?

epp_b

Actually, PHP probably isn't what you're looking for here, as you need the <textarea> box to dynamically change. For this, you'll need Javascript....

<html>
<script language="javascript">
function insertTag(tag) {
	document.htmlForm.htmlText.value = document.htmlForm.htmlText.value + "<" + tag + ">";
	closingTag = "</" + tag + ">";
}
function closeTag() {
	document.htmlForm.htmlText.value = document.htmlForm.htmlText.value + closingTag;
}
</script>
<body>
<a href="javascript:insertTag('i')">Italics</a>
<a href="javascript:closeTag()">Close Tag</a>
<form name="htmlForm">
<textarea name="htmlText"></textarea>
</body>
</html>

Use the insertTag() function and it will automatically insert whatever tag you use as it's argument (in this example, italics or <i>). When the user hits the Close Tag link, it triggers the closeTag() function which will close the tag that the user is currently using.

Oh, and javascript should be ONE word, not two, as shown above (the forum automatically separates them for security reasons)

berbbrown

Thanks for the reply.

I remember seeing a toolbar which you can add to your own PHP forms, but didn't write down the URL. Doh!. I have even searched using Google but cannot find anything.

I realise that it is a Java/DHTML thingy but wondered if anyone outthere has used such a toolbar.

I cannot believe that this is an area of DHTML that has not been developed?

Any further help would be appreciated.

epp_b

Because PHP is static, and server-side, it cannot interact dynamically with the browser. Only Javascript (or VBScript), or some other client-side language can do that, because it does not have to send a new request to the server everytime that the content needs to change. There is no possible way that you can have tags inserted, dynamically, into a textarea box with PHP.

And it's javascript, not Java (two very different programming languages 😉)

Here's my updated code:

<html>
<head>
<script language="javascript">
function insertTag(tag, close) {
	document.htmlForm.htmlText.value = document.htmlForm.htmlText.value + "<" + tag + ">";
	if (!close) {
		closingTag = "</" + tag + ">";
	}
	else {
		closingTag = "</" + close + ">";
	}
	document.htmlForm.htmlText.focus();
}
function closeTag() {
	document.htmlForm.htmlText.value = document.htmlForm.htmlText.value + closingTag;
	closingTag = "";
	document.htmlForm.htmlText.focus();
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<a href="javascript:insertTag('b')">Bold</a> |
<a href="javascript:insertTag('i')">Italics</a> |
<a href="javascript:insertTag('u')">Italics</a> |
<a href="javascript:insertTag('a href=\'Place location here\'', 'a')">Link</a> |
<a href="javascript:insertTag('table')">Table</a> |
<a href="javascript:insertTag('tr')">Table Row</a> |
<a href="javascript:insertTag('td')">Table Cell</a> |
<a href="javascript:insertTag('br')">Break</a> |
<a href="javascript:insertTag('p')">Paragraph</a>

::: <a href="javascript:closeTag()">Close Tag</a>
<form name="htmlForm">
<textarea name="htmlText" cols=50 rows=20></textarea>
</body>
</html>

If the tag needs to be closed with something other than the original, simply add a second argument when you call the function, and this will be what will close that tag (use the Link tag example for a demonstration).