Let me say first off, that I’m am more than happy with the response I had for my pretty comments jQuery plugin. More than 1500 people visited my blog last month and more are coming just for that bit of code. Really, I am impressed, never tought I’d get such response.

I have been on vacation for 2 weeks, I’ll be back at work and in fully working shape next week. That means I should get more active. I’m currently working on another jQuery plugin that takes the standard browser drop downs (we all know they can’t really be styled with css) and give you the ability to customize them. The script is started, pretty advanced, I only have some issues with accessibility and needs to test it some more to make sure it doesn’t break anything in the forms when you use it. The name? Pretty dropdown You can see I am very inspired
Thanks again for all the positive feedback!

Blogged with Flock

UPDATE: Please refer to this post for support/updates on prettyComments

Here’s a small jQuery plugin that allow textareas to strech as content is put in. If the content goes over the defined height of the textarea, the textarea will stretch.

So no need to more scroll up in that cramped space to take a look at what you wrote 10 lines before.

It’s really easy to use, just download the file pretty-comments.js and include it in the html page where you want to allow the comment box stretching. Then put that bit of code in that same page to include the script:

<script src=“the-path/js/pretty-comments.js” type=“text/javascript” charset=“utf-8″></script>

You can then play a bit with the options which are located at the top of the javascript file, you can define if you want to have it animated or not and the speed of the animation.

Then put that bit of code in the same page you have your comment box, you need to pass the comment box id as a parameter for it to work.

<script type=”text/javascript” charset=”utf-8″>
$(document).ready(function(){
prettyComments.init(’comment’);
});
</script>

That’s really all there’s to it, if you want a demo, just leave a comment, you’ll see the box stretch

Files: Un-compressed (3kb,options)
Packed (1kb, animated, no options)

Demo: Right in that page, just enter a lot of content in the comment box.

If you notice any bug, need any support, just leave a comment, I’ll do my best to help you!

Note: You also need the jQuery library in order to use this plugin

Update: Version: 1.1 relased! Now the textarea can shrink back to it’s original size when you delete content from it!