Tracking use of the Backspace in a Textarea box 1

[Scanlan]

Hello,

I have a text area box that I want to limit to 500 characters. I have a little Javascript function that is triggered by the textarea's onkeypress event. The event adds one to a global variable and when the variable reaches 501, an alert box pops up.

That all works well, but I need to account for the user pressing the backspace key. Right now, my code looks like this, but the backspace if statement seems not to be working:

function countcomchar()
{
//check for backspace, decrease counting var by 2
if (window.event.keyCode==8){
charcount = charcount-2}
else{
//if not backspace, add one to counting var
charcount = charcount+1;
}

//when counting var reaches 501, give a warning
if (charcount > 501){
var mesg
mesg = "You exceeded 500 characters."
alert(mesg);
}
}

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Ann

 

[mackey333]

um...no that won't work...what would happen if the user held backspace or highlighted and typed over..or used insert??? you would need to use onChange="checkLength()"

var msg = "msg = You exceeded 500 characters.";
var charCount;
function checkLength() {

     //load contents to var
     var charCount = document.form.textArea.value.length;

     //check length
     if (charCount == 499 || charCount > 499) {

          //alert
          alert(msg);
     }
}

-Greg :-Q

 

[baad]

yea, & i think she should use this function onkeyup as well.. Victor

 

[Scanlan]

Thanks very much, that worked. I'm using it for onkeypress, onkeyup, onkeydown, and onkeychange.

Thanks,
Ann