Formating entries from a database

And is there any way to do it without freetext box, because I dont need anything that complex just something that will read paragraphs and spaces correctly. No richtext formating is required.

The following post might be helpful:

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Web/Web_Languages/ASP/Q_20068148.html?query=format%2Btextarea&clearTAFilter=true

Best, Nauman.

fallenarmies ,
You need to turn off validateRequest property before you try to use Server.HtmlEncode inside your web site otherwise you'll get trouble on it.
This link give you more definations about it :
http://asp.net/faq/RequestValidation.aspx.
Use Server.HtmlEncode before store your data into your db, then use Server.HtmlDecode to revert html into your textarea.

And how would I decode it back to standard HTML if its from a dataset?

You also may need to replace line breaks with "<br>" and spaces with "&nbsp;".  Otherwise, the user's whitespace may be partially or completely ignored when redisplayed.

fallenarmies , Justin_W alerad mentioned it..
Long time to see Justin_W. Good day

What does a line break look like in a text field?

and what how do I replace "<" or ">"

fallenarmies ,
Something like this :
yourstring=txtTextBox.Text.Replace("<","<");

I just did this

str = Server.HtmlEncode( Comments.Text.Replace( " ", "&nbsp;" ));
str = Server.HtmlEncode( Comments.Text.Replace( "<", "<" ));

So I got them working, but ummm how do I detect if the user has entered in a TAB or Return?

also how would I decode the results from a dataset?

Ok I have the carriage return thing, and it seems to work fine, now I guess all I need to do is decode the thing so it displays the HTML Formatting. Any ideas on how to do this from a dataset?

In c#, sure this format :
vbCrlf change to "\r\n"
vbTab change to "\t"

fallenarmies , use Server.Decode() as mentioned earlier.

fallenarmies ,
I got to convert my head from vb.net to c#. Sorry if i got make any mistake there.
here is the conversion : http://www.netcoole.com/VB6TOCS/vbhtml/vbconsts.htm

I have the server.decode part. But I take it directly from the database put it into a dataset and use a Repeater to display the data, so how do I use Server.Decode with that

is it

<% Server.Decode(#DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "Comments")) %>

fallenarmies ,
You can pull your value inside a returned function.
eg:
<%#ValidData(DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "Comments")) %>

public function ValidData(string strItem)
{
  return Server.Decode(strItem);
}

fallenarmies ,
You can pull your value inside a returned function.
eg:
<%#ValidData(DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "Comments")) %>

public string ValidData(string strItem)
{
  return Server.Decode(strItem);
}

x_com>>Long time to see Justin_W. Good day
Thanks x_com!  Yeah, I was swamped with work for a while.

Cool now finally one minor problem

When I view the entry, I have a small summary of each entry. But I have the summary limited to 255 characters, the problem is that When I have a all the <BR> in it does read them.

Another problem is that when they dont enter a return or space it picks it up as one big string is it possible to limit the number of characters before it goes to the next line?

IT job seem restless :-)
Hope can see your awesome comments again in EE thread, Justin_W!