Displaying div tag in a textbox - html

Question

I am saving the below div tag into SQL DB:
String StrDiv = "<div STYLE=" + "''"+"font-family: " + lblPreviewPane.Font.Name + "; font-size: " + lblPreviewPane.Font.Size + "; color: " + ColorPicker1.Color + ""+"''" + ">" + lblPreviewPane.Text + "</div>";
The below query is used to update the message:
String sqlUpdate = "update iweb_messages set message='" + StrDiv +
"'where site_id ='" + mSiteID + "' and page_id ='" + ddlSitePage.SelectedValue + "'";
I retrieve the div from DB and display it in a textbox and a label.
In the label, the div tag is displayed as: messagetoday21
But in the textbox, the div tag is displayed as:
<div STYLE='font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 18pt; color: #CC3399'>today21</div>
I need to display the text alone in the textbox also(same as displayed in the Label).
Kindly help me with some suggestions.
I use the below code to display the text from the DB in the textbx and label:
String sqlMsg = "select message from iweb_messages where site_id='" + mSiteID + "' and page_id='" + ddlSitePage.SelectedValue + "'";
DataView dvMsg = dbLib.GetDateView(sqlMsg);
if (dvMsg.Table.Rows.Count > 0)
{
txtOutputMessage.Text = dvMsg.Table.Rows[0]["message"].ToString();
lblPreviewPane.Text = dvMsg.Table.Rows[0]["message"].ToString();
}

Answer 1

I assume your "textbox" is a textarea? If so, the behavior you're seeing is expected, because you're generating HTML that looks like this:
<textarea><div STYLE='font-family.....></div></textarea>
The content of a TEXTAREA is displayed without HTML rendering. Whereas the label (assuming it's a span or another div) will render the HTML.
So, as a quick fix, you need to save lblPreviewPane.Text to your database in addition to the full <div>; then display the value of lblPreviewPane.Text in your text box instead of the <div>.
But I would also question the wisdom of storing the full <div> in the database. If the font attributes need to be determined ahead of time, then I think you would be better off storing those attribute values in the table, then building the formatted <div> when it is being displayed.