So one of the things that I have had end users complain to me about is the size of the text boxes on the new and edit forms of lists like the contacts list and announcement list. On a recent non-SharePoint project I used a jQuery plugin to create a resizable text area so I tried to implement it in SharePoint. Here is what happened.
I downloaded the Textarea Resize JavaScript jQuery plugin, saved in a SharePoint library along with the latest version of jQuery.
Selecting the Element
In order for the jQuery code to work it has to know which elements on the page you want to work with.
Here is the code SharePoint renders for a text box:
<textarea name="ctl00$m$g_3fa2cde8_0ea8_4421_814f_6a6d292fbe54$ctl00
$ctl04$ctl0ctl00$TextField"
rows="15"
cols="20" id="ctl00_m_g_3fa2cde8_0ea8_4421_ctl00_TextField" title="Body"
class="ms-long" dir="none"></textarea>
There are two problems:
- ASP.NET creates very long and hard to use IDs
- The class ms-long culd apply to other elements on the page that I dont want to use the effect on.