color codes in textarea using jquery

Question

Is it possible to color the user entering code (inside a textarea) using jquery.

Specific texts like <h1>, <b> etc should be colored or highlighted.

this helps to distinguish the opening closing tags.

Please help

Answer 1

No.
Text blocks in <textarea> elements cannot be formatted.

You need to use a ContentEditable element.
Try CodeMirror.

Answer 2

jQuery will only be able to edit the styles of elements that can be styled using CSS. It is not possible to edit colours inside an input element in this way.

You might want to check out

SyntaxHighlighter

http://alexgorbatchev.com/wiki/SyntaxHighlighter