While HTMLAREA 2.0 and now 3.0 is incredibly impressive, it bothered me that it was well over 100k in size when you add up the code and images. Even when it is cached, it's still quite a load and you would probably use it only internally for your own templates, etc and not for visitors (unless you enjoy torturing dialup folks?)
So I sat down and started working on a lightweight but easy to impliment html-textarea replacement. It is about a week or so away from being ready for a public beta test (due to me having to also earn a living
)The entire code size is about 10k and the images are grouped together as a single 10k bar, so they load much more quickly than any other solution that uses a dozen seperate little images.
It works both in IE5-6 as well as Mozilla 1.3+ and requires only the addition of just two lines to any page you want to use it on (a simple script line in your HEAD section, and a single script call after your textarea on your page). No other changes to your page or forms is required!
If the visitor's browser cannot handle the special code, it leaves your existing textarea completely intact. It also features grabbing any existing text and automatically returning the html back to the textarea when the form is posted.
I'm squashing a few bugs and adding a few other features but it should be ready by next weekend (sep-7-2003 or so)
At least for the start, I would appreciate some beta testers that actually know dhtml and javascript well so they can help debug any problems they spot and/or help optimize the code.
I will be releasing this completely free with little to no restrictions on use and/or modification.