TEXTAREA - Multi-line Text Input

<TEXTAREA>...</TEXTAREA>

NAME=CDATA (key in submitted form)
ROWS=Number (number of rows)
COLS=Number (number of columns)
DISABLED (disable element)
READONLY (prevent changes)
ACCESSKEY=Character (shortcut key)
TABINDEX=Number (position in tabbing order)
ID=string
CLASS=string
STYLE=string
TITLE=string
LANG=Language (i.e. RU - Russian)
DIR=ltr|rtl
SCRIPTING EVENTS=string
ONFOCUS=Script (element received focus)
ONBLUR=Script (element lost focus)
ONSELECT=Script (element text selected)
ONCHANGE=Script (element value changed)

Plain text (including entities)

Block-level elements, inline elements except BUTTON

The TEXTAREA element defines a form control for the user to enter multi-line text input. While TEXTAREA is most useful within a FORM, HTML 4.0 allows TEXTAREA in any block-level or inline element other than BUTTON. However, Netscape Navigator will not display any TEXTAREA elements outside of a FORM.

The initial value of the TEXTAREA is provided as the content of the element and must not contain any HTML tags. When a form is submitted, the current value of any TEXTAREA element within the FORM is sent to the server as a name/value pair. The TEXTAREA element's NAME attribute provides the name used.

The required ROWS and COLS attributes specify the number of visible rows and columns, respectively, in a visual browser. These attributes provide a guide for the user rather than a restriction; browsers allow an unlimited amount of text input in theory, though in practice many browsers limit the contents of a TEXTAREA to 32 or 64 kilobytes. Author restrictions on the amount of data entered should be enforced by the CGI script or Java servlet handling the form.

The boolean READONLY attribute, new in HTML 4.0 and poorly supported by current browsers, prevents the user from editing the content of the TEXTAREA. Read-only elements are still submitted with the form. The DISABLED attribute, also poorly supported, disables the TEXTAREA. Disabled elements are read-only elements with the added restrictions that the values are not submitted with the form, the elements cannot receive focus, and the elements are skipped when navigating the document by tabbing.

The ACCESSKEY attribute specifies a single Unicode character as a shortcut key for giving focus to the TEXTAREA. Authors can set the access key on the TEXTAREA element or the LABEL element associated with it. Entities (e.g. &eacute;) may be used as the ACCESSKEY value.

The TABINDEX attribute specifies a number between 0 and 32767 to indicate the tabbing order of the element. A TEXTAREA with TABINDEX=0 or no TABINDEX attribute will be visited after any elements with a positive TABINDEX. Among positive TABINDEX values, the lower number receives focus first. In the case of a tie, the element appearing first in the HTML document takes precedence.

The TEXTAREA element also takes a number of attributes to specify client-side scripting actions for various events. In addition to the core events common to most elements, TEXTAREA accepts the following event attributes:

• ONFOCUS, when the element receives focus;
• ONBLUR, when the element loses focus;
• ONSELECT, when text in the element is selected;
• ONCHANGE, when the element loses focus and its value has changed since it received focus.

The ID attribute uniquely identifies an element within a document. No two elements can have the same ID value in a single document. The attribute's value must begin with a letter in the range A-Z or a-z and may be followed by letters (A-Za-z), digits (0-9), hyphens ("-"), underscores ("_"), colons (":"), and periods (".").

The following example uses the ID attribute to identify each of the first two paragraphs of a document:

<P ID=firstp>My first paragraph.</P>
<P ID=second>My second paragaph.</P>

The paragraphs in the example could have style rules associated with them through their ID attributes. The following Cascading Style Sheet defines unique colors for the two paragraphs:

P#firstp {
  color: navy;
  background: transparent
}

P#secondp {
  color: black;
  background: transparent
}

The paragraphs in the initial example could also be used as a target anchor for links:

<P>See <A HREF="#firstp">the opening paragraph</A> for more information.</P>

The CLASS attribute specifies the element to be a member of one or more classes. Classes allow authors to define specific kinds of a given element. For example, an author could use <CODE CLASS=Java> when giving Java code and <CODE CLASS=Perl> when giving Perl code.

Unlike with the ID attribute, any number of elements can share the same class. An element may also belong to multiple classes; the CLASS attribute value is a space-separated list of class names.

Note that most current browsers do not support multiple classes. Such browsers typically ignore a CLASS attribute that specifies multiple classes.

The CLASS attribute is particularly useful when combined with style sheets. For example, consider the following navigation bar:

<DIV CLASS=navbar>
<P><A HREF="/">Home</A> | <A HREF="./">Index</A> | <A HREF="/search.html">Search</A></P>
<P><A HREF="/"><IMG SRC="logo.gif" ALT="" TITLE="WDG Logo"></A></P>
</DIV>

This example's use of the CLASS attribute allows style rules to easily be added. The following Cascading Style Sheet suggests a presentation for the preceding example:

.navbar {
  margin-top: 2em;
  padding-top: 1em;
  border-top: solid thin navy
}

.navbar IMG { float: right }

@media print {
  .navbar { display: none }
}

The STYLE attribute allows authors to specify style rules inline for a single occurrence of an element. An example follows:

<P>A popular font for on-screen reading is <SPAN STYLE="font-family: Verdana">Verdana</SPAN>.</P>

When the STYLE attribute is used, a default style sheet language must be specified for the document by setting the Content-Style-Type HTTP header to the media type of the style sheet language. The previous example could use the following META element in the document's HEAD:

<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Style-Type" CONTENT="text/css">

In most cases, use of the CLASS or ID attributes is a better choice than using STYLE since ID and CLASS can be selectively applied to different media and since they provide a separation of content and presentation that often simplifies maintenance.

The TITLE attribute provides a title for an element and is commonly implemented as a "tooltip" on visual browsers, though many browsers lack support for TITLE. The attribute is most useful with A, LINK, IMG, and OBJECT elements, where it provides a title for the linked or embedded resource. Some examples follow:

• <A HREF="mailto:liam@htmlhelp.com" TITLE="Feedback on HTML 4.0 Reference">liam@htmlhelp.com</A>
• <A HREF="http://www-genome.wi.mit.edu/ftp/pub/software/WWW/cgi_docs.html" TITLE="CGI.pm - a Perl5 CGI Library">CGI.pm</A>
• <LINK REL=Alternate HREF="index.fr.html" HREFLANG=fr LANG=fr TITLE="Version française">
• <OBJECT CLASSID="java:Yahtzee.class" CODETYPE="application/java" WIDTH=400 HEIGHT=250 STANDBY="Ready to play Yahtzee?" TITLE="My Yahtzee Game">
<IMG SRC="yahtzee.gif" ALT="" TITLE="A Yahtzee animation">
Yahtzee is my <EM>favorite</EM> game!
</OBJECT>

TITLE is also helpful with the ABBR and ACRONYM elements to provide the long form of the abbreviation. Examples:

• He weighs 180 <ABBR TITLE=pounds>lbs.</ABBR>
• <ABBR TITLE="Parti Québécois" LANG=fr-CA>PQ</ABBR>
• <ACRONYM TITLE="North Atlantic Treaty Organization">NATO</ACRONYM>

The LANG attribute specifies the language of an element's attribute values and its content, including all contained elements that do not specify their own LANG attribute. While the LANG attribute is not widely supported, its use may help search engines index a document by its language while allowing speech synthesizers to use language-dependent pronunciation rules. As well, visual browsers can use the language's proper quotation marks when rendering the Q element.

The attribute value is case-insensitive, and should be specified according to RFC 1766; examples include en for English, en-US for American English, and ja for Japanese. Whitespace is not allowed in the language code.

Use of the LANG attribute also allows authors to easily change the style of text depending on the language. For example, a bilingual document may have one language in italics if rendered visually or a different voice if rendered aurally. The HTML of such a document might be as follows:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0//EN"
   "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/strict.dtd">
<TITLE>Welcome - Bienvenue</TITLE>
<H1>
  <SPAN LANG=en>Welcome</SPAN> -
  <SPAN LANG=fr>Bienvenue</SPAN>
</H1>
<P LANG=en>This paragraph is in English.</P>
<P LANG=fr>Ce paragraphe est en français.</P>
...

A document's primary language may be set using the LANG attribute on the HTML element, or, alternatively, by using the Content-Language HTTP header.

A number of attributes that define client-side scripting events are common to most elements. The attribute value is a script--typically a function call or a few short statements--that is executed when the event occurs. The value may contain entities (e.g., &quot;).

The following example features JavaScript code to handle two events of a submit button, giving the user a reminder in the status bar when the mouse moves over the button and clearing the status bar when the mouse moves away. Note that the attribute values are delimited by single quotes since double quotes are used within them.

<INPUT TYPE=submit ONMOUSEOVER='window.status="Did you fill in all required fields?";' ONMOUSEOUT='window.status="";'>

When an event attribute is used, a default scripting language must be specified for the document by setting the Content-Script-Type HTTP header to the media type of the scripting language. The previous example could use the following META element in the document's HEAD:

<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Script-Type" CONTENT="text/javascript">

The common event attributes are device-dependent and largely tailored for the graphical user interface. The available events are as follows:

• ONCLICK, when the mouse button is clicked on an element;
• ONDBLCLICK, when the mouse button is double-clicked on an element;
• ONMOUSEDOWN, when the mouse button is pressed over an element;
• ONMOUSEUP, when the mouse button is released over an element;
• ONMOUSEOVER, when the mouse is moved onto an element;
• ONMOUSEMOVE, when the mouse is moved while over an element;
• ONMOUSEOUT, when the mouse is moved away from an element;
• ONKEYPRESS, when a key is pressed and released over an element;
• ONKEYDOWN, when a key is pressed down over an element;
• ONKEYUP, when a key is released over an element.