Formatting text in a form text field - like vB code

[RS_SS350]

1st time poster, hoping I can find some help on this thing I am trying to do.

Well, basically, i have put together a sort of blog form using php, but the text that is entered into the form is entered into the db as unformatted text (no line breaks, etc) . the enytries are posted to a MySQL db and then spit out on a journal type web page.

What I would like to do is have something similar to this interface (the post message interface and how it uses vB code) where there are buttons for BOLD, ITALIC, INSERT LINK, etc. I would also like the text to come out formatted exactly as entered into the text field in terms of line breaks and stuff.

Can anyone help me out with a code snippet that I can integrate into my existing form? I am not very well-versed in creating PHP code from scratch, but I can handle manipulating existing PHP for my own use.

MANY THANKS!
RS

[weekender]

use [man]nl2br[/man] to convert new lines (/r or /r/n) to html breaks (<BR>).

like this;

$textdata = nl2br($textdata);

adding BB style tags into the text box is Javascript/DHTML i think. if you have a textbox

<TEXTAREA ID="contentbox"...

and a button or image, you need to set the onclick item so that it adds the relevant text to the textarea value.

ONCLICK="contentbox.value = contentbox.value + '[BOLD][/BOLD]';"

i think! note, you can only add to the source anywhere, not just at the end; but it is not possible to add where the cursor is, as when you click the button you remove focus (and therefore the cursor) from the textarea.

bit rusty on JSP/DHTML, so you'll have to do some work to make it work

adam

[RS_SS350]

thanks for the reply, weekender. so if i just do a view source on a page that has that, i should be able to track down that code, right?

[weekender]

yeah - i just did a view source on this (the reply) page, and when you click on the buttons it uses a jsp function called vbcode, which is stored in the file http://www.phpbuilder.com/board/vbcode.js

the code for the function is this

function vbcode(theform,vbcode,prompttext) {
// insert [x]yyy[/x] style markup
if ((normalmode(theform)) || (vbcode=="IMG")) {
inserttext = prompt(tag_prompt+"\n["+vbcode+"]xxx[/"+vbcode+"]",prompttext);
if ((inserttext != null) && (inserttext != ""))
theform.message.value += "["+vbcode+"]"+inserttext+"[/"+vbcode+"] ";
}
else {
donotinsert = false;
for (i = 0; i < tags.length; i++) {
if (tags == vbcode)
donotinsert = true;
}
if (donotinsert)
stat("already_open");
else {
theform.message.value += "["+vbcode+"]";
arraypush(tags,vbcode);
}
}
theform.message.focus();
}

so it's doing what i was getting at, anyway.

if any of the admins are looking - i'm not code stealing, honest guvnor!

[RS_SS350]

cheers, mate! (sorry, i used to be a bartender in london and i have to say that everytime i encounter a brit).

anyways, thats great... sadly, my webhost doesn't allow JSP, just php... i'll figure something out.

thanks for the heads up 🙂

[weekender]

woah just a sec - javascript is client side - you dont need your host company to allow it. Just output it to the browser and it will work.

london bartender? cool. where are you from then?

[RS_SS350]

ah, i thought you said JSP, my bad. looks like evrything is gonna work out. you are the man.

i'm actually from Brooklyn, NY, but I did do a brief stint as a Bartender at a pub in london after i graduated from University.