Typically web forms allow you only to write in plain ascii text. However, often it is useful to allow these text areas to accept HTML code. This however is not very user friendly for non-HTML savey users. There are a few options available including javascript WYSIWYG editors or browser extensions which will work on any text area.
When I have some time I’ll update this page fully but I’ll start with random jottings for now.
Xinha, Here!
If you are a Firefox user (that is another web browser like Internet Exporer but slightly better in a lot of ways) then you can download the Xinha, Here! extension. This will pop up a little RTF editor and let you type nice text and images in. When you’re done then you can hit ok and the appropriate HTML arrives in the textarea. The downside is it doesn’t seem to care much how the resulting HTML is formatted (as it doesn’t matter how many extra spaces you have in HTML) so it squashes the text up a bit. This makes it a bit hard to read if you’re up for hand editing later … which I generally am.
The other problem with Xinha, Here! and similar extensions is they need to be installed on your own browser client which isn’t much use for 3rd party users or if you are away on another computer.
Javascript Solutions
Alternatively there are now a couple of Javascripts available which can sort the problem out. At the cost of a little more data to downlaod and the necessity of having JS enabled the user can operate an RTF editor in situ. I’ll flag up some examples when I have more time.