[thesite] Those pesky TEXTAREAs

[Simon Coggins]

> we did talk about forced wraps, but shot it down for a couple
> reasons:
>
> - code could not be cut-n-pasted and expected to work because
> often code cannot be broken across multiple lines in scripting
> languages...

True.

> - the number of characters is an arbitrary number, and cannot be
> determined in a vacuum... assuming users at 640x480, with
> custom font sizes, i think we found 20 characters was the limit,
> and even then, it could still be too many...

I didn't realise it would be as few as that. That's why I suggested using
pixels for the fonts, but even so I agree it's not ideal.

> not to mention, i'd rather not see any more server-side processing
> on articles if possible... i'd rather see CSS take care of this mess...

That was my first thought too, but I see a couple of pretty fundamental
problems with using CSS:

- The layout will still break in pre-CSS browsers
- I can't see any way round having either (a) horizontal scrolling or
  (b) forced-wrapping. (a) leads to the same problems as the textareas,
  while (b) causing the cutting and pasting problems.

Those long lines have got to go somewhere...

Still, I'll keep plugging away. Sorry if I'm retreading old ground - I
must have missed the original discussion.

Simon