Tutorial 13: Giving Form to Forms
|
| ||||
| ||||
|
|
Multi-line text boxes with the TEXTAREA element
Another element that is used to create form controls is the TEXTAREA element, which is very similar to an INPUT element with TYPE="text", with the exception that TEXTAREA elements define multi-line text boxes.
The TEXTAREA element
- Context:
- Can only appear inside a FORM element
- Contents:
- Can only contain text, and no other elements. The contents of the element form its default value
- Tags:
- Both start-tag and end-tag are required.
Attributes for the TEXTAREA element
- NAME (Name)
- The name that will be used for the name/value pair that the control creates.
- ROWS (Integer)
- The number of rows of text that the control can display at one time.
- COLS (Integer)
- The number of columns of text that the control can display at one time.
- Read-only control attribute
- Disabled control attribute
- Identifier and classification attributes
- Language information attributes
- Title attribute
- Inline style information attribute
- Text alignment attribute
- Tabbing navigation attribute
- Accessibility key attribute
- Intrinsic event handler attributes
<FORM ACTION="/cgi-bin/html/formdump.cgi" METHOD="GET" ENCTYPE="application/x-www-form-urlencoded"> <TEXTAREA NAME="comments" ROWS="5" COLS="40"> This is a text area with 5 rows and 40 columns visible by default. The text inside the element is its default value. Although the control is limited in size, the text entered can be larger than this size, and the user agent will presumably offer a scrolling mechanism for it. </TEXTAREA> <INPUT TYPE="submit"> </FORM>
The TEXTAREA element is very similar to a normal text box. It takes its name from the NAME attribute, its initial value from its contents and its final value from whatever the user types into the text box. You can also set the size of the text box using the ROWS and COLS attributes.
