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**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [February 13, 2007, 9:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/displaying-html-in-a-form/85464 "2007-02-13T21:25:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1
**Author:**  [@matt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/matt)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2007, 9:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/displaying-html-in-a-form/85464/1 "2007-02-13T21:25:28Z")
Hello,
I would like to be able to pass html code into a text\_area in a form so
that it is displayed as executed code i.e. i want to be able to apply
different fonts to different words in the text\_area. Is this a
possibility?
At the moment i am using text\_area\_tag and the html that i pass in just
seems to be displayed as a string… which makes sense - however i need
the html that i pass in to be executed and displayed properly…
Am i using the correct container to perform this task or is there a
better one available?
The reason that i am doing this is that i would like the user to be able
to type Ruby code into a form and i would use javascript to make a call
to a function that parses the input - using the syntax plugin (generates
html from ruby code) - and then display this ‘syntax highlighted’ code
in the browser (in the form)…
Any ideas would be much appreciated
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**Author:**  [@matt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/matt)\
**Post date:** [February 14, 2007, 11:34am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/displaying-html-in-a-form/85464/2 "2007-02-14T11:34:33Z")
> I would like to be able to pass html code into a text\_area in a form so
> that it is displayed as executed code i.e. i want to be able to apply
> different fonts to different words in the text\_area. Is this a
> possibility?
Textareas are, by definition, just plain text. So i don’t think this is
possible using them as they will only ever take in a string and display
it as a string.
> Am i using the correct container to perform this task or is there a
> better one available?
No, is the short answer. I am not aware of a container that will allow
you to display editable html code. However i could be proved wrong!
- j
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**Author:**  [@matt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/matt)\
**Post date:** [February 14, 2007, 2:52pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/displaying-html-in-a-form/85464/3 "2007-02-14T14:52:29Z")
you mean something like this?
> **[fermads.net](http://codepress.fermads.net/)**
>
> This domain may be for sale!
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**Author:**  [@matt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/matt)\
**Post date:** [February 14, 2007, 2:55pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/displaying-html-in-a-form/85464/4 "2007-02-14T14:55:30Z")
of course, i forgot to mention it’s backend is done in php, but the
point is, it can be done.
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**Author:**  [@matt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/matt)\
**Post date:** [February 15, 2007, 6:24pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/displaying-html-in-a-form/85464/5 "2007-02-15T18:24:46Z")
Chris H. wrote:
> you mean something like this?
>
> [http://codepress.fermads.net/](http://codepress.fermads.net/)
Yes, but would would you be able to integrate that with rails, it seems
to only load from a file or am i missing something - is it possible to
save and load from a database?