[thelist] [Q] php and javascript

I am new to this list, so I hop my question fits here.

Maybe this a bit off topic, but i am modifying Phorum (a php discussion
programa ) so a new post pops up in a new window and also putting some
javascript buttons i found on the net that ease html editing. 

Then I found DhtmlEdit control, which lets you edit html in realtime (like
ctrl-b gets you bold characters, and you can see them). This only runs on
windows, so if the client is not windows i show a normal textarea.

The thing is, I havent been able to make this control work. Since it is an
<object> i cannot process its contents with php. Someone suggested me to
copy its contents to a hidden field of a form when the "post message" button
was clicked; problem is, i dont know javascript and i dont know how to
achieve this.

Maybe there is a simpler way to do this, any help is apreciated.