Puts a multiline text entry box in a cfform tag and controls its display characteristics. Optionally, displays a rich text editor with configurable controls for formatting HTML text.

Forms Tags

cfajaximport cfapplet cfcalendar cfform cfformgroup cfformitem cfgrid cfinput cfselect cfslider cftree

ColdFusion 8: Added support for the bind attribute in HTML format forms, including the bindAttribute, bindOnLoad, and onBindError attributes. Added support for tool tips in HTML format, including the sourceForTooltip attribute. Added support for a rich text editor in HTML format, including the richtext, basepath, fontFormats, fontNames, fontSizes, skin, stylesXML, templatesXML, toolbar, and toolbarOnFocus attributes and support for the height and width attributes. ColdFusion MX 7: Added this tag.

<cftextarea  
    name="name" 
    basepath="path" 
    bind="bind expression" 
    bindAttribute="attribute name" 
    bindOnLoad="false|true" 
    disabled="true|false" or no attribute value 
    enabled="yes|no" 
    fontFormats="comma separated list" 
    fontNames="comma separated list" 
    fontSizes="comma separated list" 
    height="number of pixels" 
    html="no|yes" 
    label="text" 
    maxlength="number" 
    message="text" 
    onBindError = "JavaScript function name" 
    onChange="JavaScript or ActionScript" 
    onClick="JavaScript or ActionScript" 
    onError="script name" 
    onKeyDown="JavaScript or ActionScript" 
    onKeyUp="JavaScript or ActionScript" 
    onMouseDown="JavaScript or ActionScript" 
    onMouseUp="JavaScript or ActionScript" 
    onValidate="script name" 
    pattern="regexp" 
    range="minimum value, maximum value" 
    required="yes|no" 
    richtext="no|yes" 
    secureUpload="true|false" 
    skin="default|silver|office2003|custom skin" 
    sourceForToolTip="URL" 
    style="style specification" 
    stylesXML="path" 
    templatesXML"path" 
    toolbar="Default|Basic|custom toolbar" 
    toolbarOnFocus"no|yes" 
    tooltip="tip text" 
    validate="data type" 
    validateAt= one or more of "onBlur, onServer, onSubmit" 
    value="text" 
    visible="yes|no" 
    width="number of pixels" 
    wrap="off|hard|soft|virtual|physical"> 
 
        text 
 
</cftextarea>

Some attributes apply to only specific display formats. For details see the Attributes table. Note: You can specify this tag’s attributes in an attributeCollection attribute whose value is a structure. Specify the structure name in the attributeCollection attribute and use the tag’s attribute names as structure keys.

For this tag to work properly in HTML format. the browser must be JavaScript-enabled.
If you put text in the tag body, the control displays all text characters between the cftextarea opening and closing tags; therefore, if you use line feeds or white space to format your source text, they appear in the control.
If the cfform preserveData attribute is "yes", and the form posts back to the same page, the posted value (not the value of the value attribute) of the cftextinput control is used.

This example has two cftextarea controls. When you submit the form, ColdFusion copies the text from the first control into the second. The onBlur maxlength validation prevents you from entering more than 100 characters. The > character that closes the cftextarea opening tag, the text in the tag body, and the cftextarea closing tag are on a single line to ensure that only the desired text displays, but the line is split in this example for formatting purposes.

<h3>cftextarea Example</h3> 
<cfparam name="text2" default=""> 
<cfif isdefined("form.textarea1") AND (form.textarea1 NEQ "")> 
    <cfset text2=form.textarea1> 
</cfif> 
 
<cfform name="form1"> 
    <cftextarea name="textarea1" wrap="virtual" rows="5" cols="25" 
    validate="maxlength" validateAt="onBlur" maxlength="100"  
    >Replace this text. Maximum length is 100 Characters, and this text is 
    currently 99 characters long.</cftextarea> 
    <cftextarea name="textarea2" wrap="virtual" rows="5" cols="50" value="#text2#" /><br><br> 
    <input type="submit" value="submit field"><br> 
</cfform>