Question: How does Stackoverflow do the character counter saying xyz characters left?

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fZD01.png)

Answer: 
Probably something like (with jQuery):

```
$('#txtbox').keypress(function() {
    var max = 500;
    var textLen = $(this).val().length;
    var textLeft = max - textLen;
    $('#charCount').text(
        textLeft + ' character' + (textLeft == 1 ? '' : 's') + ' left'
    );
});

```

(I know it's lazy to not actually look and see how they do it, but here's a working example: <http://jsfiddle.net/FishBasketGordo/hqex8/>)
Have a look at this page on one of my sites <http://www.bestvaluesolicitors.com/contact-us>

Peek at the JS - you are looking for this function:

`function ml(id,max,repeat){if($F(id).length>max){$(id).value=$F(id).substring(0,max);}$(id).next('div').update($F(id).length+' / '+max+' characters');if(repeat==true){setTimeout('ml("'+id+'",'+max+','+repeat+')',500);}}`

Esentially it is a combination of a timer and counting the length of text in the `textarea`