I want to use the features and functionality that the tag offers in browsers. I want to use it merely to hold a large block of information that
Following the standards the textarea
element should be a descendant of a form
element.
HTML5 allows to place textarea
outside the form but have a form
attribute filled.
See: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/HTML/HTML_Elements/textarea
But as I know you'll not get any errors in major browsers using textarea
outside the form and without the form
attribute.
For the purpose you've described in your question, you can just use a div
element with vertical scrolling: http://jsfiddle.net/f0t0n/Ybznv/
#log {
height: 256px;
width: 512px;
overflow: auto;
}