Sending HTML only on Submit.

[JohnMitch]

Here's my question. Let's say I build an editor based on the Idea of Monie and Spinal.
<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:<hr height="1" noshade="noshade" id="quote" />I'm not good at these things but i'll explain monie's code...

THE IDEA:
the textRange object lets you rerieve and change text within an element.

USES:
"document.selection" points to the current selection on the document (duh!)

I made a small example so you can try it out yourself.
save this onto a htm file and run it:

<SCRIPT>
function MakeBold(){
// find selection
r = document.selection.createRange();

// exit function if no selection has been made
if(r==null){ return; }

// replace selection by itself, surrounded by the "[b]" tag
r.pasteHTML("" +r.htmlText+ "");
}
</SCRIPT>
<INPUT TYPE=button value="Make Selection Bold" onMouseDown="MakeBold();">


text and more text and more text and more text and more text and more
text and more text and more text and more text and more text and more
text and more text and more text and more text and more text and more
text and more text and more text and more text and more text and more
text and more text and more text and more text and more text and more
text and more text and more text and more text and more text and more
</BODY>


1 . make a selection
2 . click the "Make Selection Bold" button
3 . that will trigger a function wi=hich will:
3 a) find the selection in the body of the document
3 b) retrieve the selected text
3 c) replace it by the same selected text sorrounded by the "[b]" tag
<hr height="1" noshade="noshade" id="quote" /></blockquote id="quote">

How would I go about making it where when the user clicked on "Submit" it sends the HTML only and not the script? I think if I can get this to work it would be great for my users who don't understand anything about HTML.

[spinal007]

simple,

once you've updated the textRange's html to show the result of the operation, use the same textRange to retrive the HTML code and save the it onto a hidden textarea, then submit the textarea...

i dont have time now but I'll write an example later...

I would not advice you designing your own HTML editor for the following reasons:

1. there's free stuff out there. many very talented programmers (God bless the bastards) spend months or even years developing the most sweet pieces of coding you ever seen and let you use at at will. I gave up my own editor when I found htmlArea (http://www.interactivetools.com/products/htmlarea/)

2. having made the point above, you'll be wasiting your time trying to design something that will match the quality of the above, so unless you're simply trying to learn a few techniques, don't go all the way. by all means try and re-create the software in your own way, practice and learn from the code, but anyone is better off taking advantage of the free software available.

3. I forgot wat my third point was...

[spinal007]

dat was me ^^^^

[Rob]

[img]images/spinalbrain.gif[/img]

[spinal007]

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH....................
THAT'S GETTING PERSONAL....


but I like it! nice chart!

[Rob]

[Webforumz Staff]

I think Rob has WAAAY too much time on his hands!

[benbacardi]

i agree!

[spinal007]

yeah, me too!

I;d never do have anytime to aste on that....

[Rob]

I took me 3 minutes.... lol