What is the best way to limit the amount of text that can be entered into a 'textarea'?

Question

What is the best way to limit the amount of text that a user can enter into a \'textarea\' field on a web page? The application in question is ASP .NET, but a platform agnos

Answer 1

I use this, where the limit is a must. It also provides the user with the number of characters left.

function CountLength(vControl)
    {
        var strValue = vControl.value;
        var vMax = 480;
        var vLeft = vMax - strValue.length;
        if (vLeft < 0)
        {
            vLeft = 0;
        }
        var vMessage = returnObjById('TextCounter');
        if (document.all)
        {
            vMessage.innerText = vLeft + ' characters remaining.';
        }
        else
        {   
            vMessage.textContent = vLeft + ' characters remaining.';
        }
        if (vLeft == 0)
        {
            vControl.value = vControl.value.substring(0, vMax);
        }
    }