Its not possible to put a character limit on multi line text box areas in HTML/XHTML so you have to use some form of JavaScript snippet, here is a snippet I use, because its quick and very simple to customize.
<script type="text/javascript">
//Max length multiline textbox checker
function checkMaxLen(txt,maxLen) {
try{
if(txt.value.length > (maxLen-1)) {
var cont = txt.value;
txt.value = cont.substring(0,(maxLen -1));
return false;
};
}catch(e){
}
};
</script>
Then use the following code on the Textarea tag.
<textarea onkeyup="return checkMaxLen(this,5000)"></textarea>
You simply set the text limit by changing the value in the JavaScript function from 5000 to what ever number of characters you need.
Or you could just set ‘maxlength’ on the control in the development environment which handled this for you with no need for knowledge of javascript.
Seriously outdated advice, not sure I agree with advice being posted which is obsolete.
Comment by TheCoder — August 14, 2008 @ 4:19 pm
Max length doesn’t work on TEXTAREA, thats the point….
Comment by Michael Fasani — September 19, 2008 @ 10:36 am
I believe you can limit the text field in textarea boxes that runs serverside on the .Net platform. Using a RegularExpression Validator will sort this out with ease (or you could use a custom validator too).
One other thing, if you set the textmode of the field to “SingleLine” or “Password” then Maxlength magically works!
Comment by Neil-One — September 22, 2008 @ 10:13 am