Add Data Into Text Area... Please help

[WebMasterAJ]

Hello all!

Can someone please tell me how I can make something similar to whats above the text area when someone replies or makes a new thread?

The writers for my site don't know ANYTHING about HTML, and making something like the "http://" button above would be a huge help!

I've done some searching, and only found ways to make bold and underline... etc.

Anyways, can someone please help me out?

Thanks!

[Maelstrom]

I am not quite sure what you are asking. Well I am kind of sure. Are you retrieving this data from a database or just using javascript. I assume if it is similar to a response button than it is some sort of database and server language. That is how this site does it.

[webgremlin]

that is a pretty neat feature--it's all done with javascript, though what converts that code in to real html is a script running on the server. for in-house use you could just use html straight, probably, instead of using the vB Code.

you can get an idea how sitepoint does it by viewing the source on a reply page and checking out http://www.sitepointforums.com/vbcode.js and http://www.sitepointforums.com/vbcode_language.js

This is a fairly advanced little script, though, so if you don't know what you're doing, expect to be confused.

-wg <><

[Flawless_koder]

Depends really on how you want the href to be shown.
The document.createElement('A'); method would work quite well if you wanted an instant clientside reflection of the href:

function create_link(){
 var hrf=prompt('Please type your link in here:','www.worldwideweb.com');
 var a=document.createElement('A');
 a.href=href;
 a.target='_blank';
 a.style.text-decoration='none'; // No underline
 a.style.color='#660000';
 /* The following line would probably NOT work,
    but it might be worth a try, since if it does
    the effect would be very unique.
    As far as i'm aware the textbox element does NOT
    have the ability to spawn children
 document.all.textbox.appendChild(a);
    This is the end of unlikely code!             */
 document.all.showing_divider.appendChild(a);
 // The above would work though
 }

The other thing you might want to do is manually create a link and add it as text to a textbox so that you can then save it to the disk quickly with a server side language. ie: you literally put <a href='x' target='_blank'> into the textbox, and it's saved directly into the source by the server side lanugage.

The third approach is to have a server language parse the text box for something like :href[www.sitepointforums.com].

I don't see much point in doing it this way, but some people might want to for convienience of browser compatibility ( i can't stand NN anyway ;-) )

Hope this adds something to the discussion.

Flawless