Q:

locking a textarea using jQuery?

How do I "lock" a textarea with jQuery so that no more characters can be entered?  I don't want to necessarily disable it since I want to allow characters to be deleted.
update: oops..it just came to me:
if I am limiting the length to say 400 characters then i can use the following when the length is > 400:
this.value = this.value.substring(0, 400);

which will just trim the excess

A:

following is quick contraption from modification of jquery.numeric plugin :) 
It allows special keys but don't let user type anything.
<textarea id="txt" rows="5" cols="50"></textarea>

<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function(){
   $("#txt").keypress(function(e){
         var key = e.charCode ? e.charCode : e.keyCode ? e.keyCode : 0;
         // allow Ctrl+A
         if((e.ctrlKey && key == 97 /* firefox */) || (e.ctrlKey && key == 65) 
                                     /* opera */) return true;
         // allow Ctrl+X (cut)
         if((e.ctrlKey && key == 120 /* firefox */) || (e.ctrlKey && key == 88) 
                                     /* opera */) return true;
         // allow Ctrl+C (copy)
         if((e.ctrlKey && key == 99 /* firefox */) || (e.ctrlKey && key == 67) 
                                     /* opera */) return true;
         // allow Ctrl+Z (undo)
         if((e.ctrlKey && key == 122 /* firefox */) || (e.ctrlKey && key == 90) 
                                     /* opera */) return true;
         // allow or deny Ctrl+V (paste), Shift+Ins
         if((e.ctrlKey && key == 118 /* firefox */) || (e.ctrlKey && key == 86) 
                                     /* opera */
         || (e.shiftKey && key == 45)) return true;
         //page up, down, home end, left-right-up-down
         if(key > 32 && key < 40) return true;

         // if DEL or BACKSPACE is pressed
         return key == 46 || key == 8;

   });
});
</script>

