search for: text_area_value

Greetings, This might be a pretty basic question not even totally rails specific, but how do I control text editing using ruby on rails? For instance, I am using the ruby forum http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/new as I type this and am typing into a textarea tag. I have this in my rails app and I want to know how to save the formatting - such as when I hit returns to go to a new line when I