Character countdown like on twitter

Question

How can I make a \"remaining characters\" countdown like the one on Twitter with jQuery? And also limit the input to a textarea.

Answer 1

It's a suicide to use jQuery, Mootools or similar for such simple task ... unless you are already using them for something else.

Simple javascript function:

function limitTextCount(limitField_id, limitCount_id, limitNum)
{
    var limitField = document.getElementById(limitField_id);
    var limitCount = document.getElementById(limitCount_id);
    var fieldLEN = limitField.value.length;

    if (fieldLEN > limitNum)
    {
        limitField.value = limitField.value.substring(0, limitNum);
    }
    else
    {
        limitCount.innerHTML = (limitNum - fieldLEN) + ' charachter(s) to go.';
    }
}

The first parameter is id of the input/textarea. The second - id of the div to display characters left. The third is the limit itself.

And simple HTML:

100 charachter(s) to go..