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16.3 Text Controls

399

Element ), characters, including those generated from character entities, are

URL encoded before being transmitted. That is, spaces become plus signs

and other nonalphanumeric characters become 

%XX

, where 

XX

 is the numeric

value of the character in hex.

NAME

This attribute specifies the name that will be sent to the server.

ROWS

ROWS

 specifies the number of visible lines of text. If more lines of text 

are entered, a vertical scrollbar will be added to the text area. 

COLS

COLS

 specifies the visible width of the text area, based on the average 

width of characters in the font being used. If the text on a single line 

contains more characters than the specified width allows, the result is 

browser dependent. In Netscape, horizontal scrollbars are added (but 

see the 

WRAP

 attribute, described next, to change this behavior). In 

Internet Explorer, the word wraps around to the next line.

WRAP

The Netscape specific 

WRAP

 attribute specifies what to do with lines 

that are longer than the size specified by 

COLS

. A value of 

OFF

 disables 

word wrap and is the default. The user can still enter explicit line breaks 

in such a case. A value of 

HARD

 causes words to wrap in the text area and 

the associated line breaks to be transmitted when the form is submitted. 

Finally, a value of 

SOFT

 causes the words to wrap in the text area but no 

extra line breaks to be transmitted when the form is submitted.

ONCHANGE, ONSELECT, ONFOCUS, ONBLUR, ONKEY 

DOWN, ONKEYPRESS, and ONKEYUP

These attributes apply only to browsers that support JavaScript; they 

specify code to be executed when certain conditions arise. 

ONCHANGE

handles the situation when the input focus leaves the text area after it 

has changed, 

ONSELECT

 describes what to do when text in the text area 

is selected by the user, 

ONFOCUS

 and 

ONBLUR

 specify what to do when 

the text area acquires or loses the input focus, and the remaining 

attributes determine what to do when individual keys are typed.

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